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Robin Thomas (mathematician)

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Robin Thomas
Born(1962-08-22)August 22, 1962[1]
Prague, Czechoslovakia
DiedMarch 26, 2020(2020-03-26) (aged 57)[2]
Alma materCharles University
AwardsFulkerson Prize
Karel Janeček Foundation Neuron Prize
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsGeorgia Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisorJaroslav Nešetřil

Robin Thomas (August 22, 1962 – March 26, 2020) was a mathematician working in graph theory at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Thomas received his doctorate in 1985 from Charles University in Prague, Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic), under the supervision of Jaroslav Nešetřil.[3] He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech in 1989, and became a Regents' Professor there,[4][5] briefly serving as the department Chair.

On March 26, 2020, he died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at the age of 57 after 12 years of struggle with the illness.[2][6]

Awards

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Thomas was awarded the Fulkerson Prize for outstanding papers in discrete mathematics twice,[7] in 1994 as co-author of a paper on the Hadwiger conjecture,[8] and in 2009 for the proof of the strong perfect graph theorem.[9] In 2011 he was awarded the Karel Janeček Foundation Neuron Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Mathematics.[10] In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[11] He was named a SIAM Fellow in 2018.[12] The January 2023 issue of the Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B was a tribute to his work.[13]

References

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  1. ^ Cremation Society of Georgia: Robin Thomas
  2. ^ a b Fortnow, Lance (March 28, 2020). "Robin Thomas". Computational Complexity.
  3. ^ Robin Thomas at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
  4. ^ Author biography from Berg, Deborah E.; Norine, Serguei; Su, Francis Edward; Thomas, Robin; Wollan, Paul (2008). "Voting in agreeable societies". arXiv:0811.3245 [math.CO]..
  5. ^ Robin Thomas Earns Distinction, Named Regents' Professor, Georgia Tech College of Computing, June 24, 2010.
  6. ^ Robin Thomas tribute, Georgia Tech Mathematics, April 7, 2020.
  7. ^ Fulkerson Prize: Official site with award details.
  8. ^ Robertson, Neil; Seymour, Paul; Thomas, Robin (1993), "Hadwiger's conjecture for K6-free graphs", Combinatorica, 13 (3): 279–361, doi:10.1007/BF01202354, S2CID 9608738.
  9. ^ Chudnovsky, Maria; Robertson, Neil; Seymour, Paul; Thomas, Robin (2006), "The strong perfect graph theorem", Annals of Mathematics, 164 (1): 51–229, arXiv:math/0212070, doi:10.4007/annals.2006.164.51, S2CID 119151552.
  10. ^ Karel Janeček Foundation 2011 Neuron Prize winners (in Czech) Archived 2012-12-23 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, retrieved 2013-08-27.
  12. ^ "SIAM Announces Class of 2018 Fellows", SIAM News, March 29, 2018
  13. ^ Krivelevich, Michael; Mohar, Bojan (2023). "Editorial | Robin Thomas (1962–2020)". Journal of Combinatorial Theory, Series B. doi:10.1016/j.jctb.2022.10.001.
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