Robert P. Langlands
Professor Emeritus School of Mathematics

Robert Langlands’ profound insights in number theory and representation theory changed the direction of research in both fields. In addition to the formulation of general principles relating automorphic forms and algebraic number theory, and the introduction of a general class of L-functions, his principal achievements are the construction of a general theory of Eisenstein series; the introduction of techniques for dealing with particular cases of the Artin conjecture (that proved to be of use in the proof of Fermat’s theorem); the introduction of endoscopy; and the development of techniques for relating the zeta functions of Shimura varieties to automorphic L-functions. Mathematicians have been working on his conjectures, the Langlands Program, for the last three decades.

Ph.D., Yale University, 1960; Princeton University Faculty, 1960-67; Professor, Yale University, 1967-72; Institute for Advanced Study, Member, 1962-63, Professor, 1972-1993, Hermann Weyl Professor, 1993-2007, Emeritus, 2007-; Member, Royal Society, Royal Society of Canada, American Mathematical Society, Canadian Mathematical Society.