Nationality American Fields Mathematics | Name Robert MacPherson Role Mathematician | |
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Institutions Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyBrown UniversityPrinceton University Doctoral students Eric BabsonMark GoreskyPaul GunnellsJulianna TymoczkoKari Vilonen Books Categorical Framework for the Study of Singular Spaces Similar People Mark Goresky, William Fulton, Jean‑Luc Brylinski, Raoul Bott |
Measuring shape with homology robert macpherson
Robert Duncan MacPherson (born May 25, 1944) is an American mathematician at the Institute for Advanced Study and Princeton University. He is best known for the invention of intersection homology with Mark Goresky, whose thesis he directed at Brown University. MacPherson previously taught at Brown University, the University of Paris, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1983 he gave a plenary address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw.
Contents
- Measuring shape with homology robert macpherson
- Robert macpherson helmet design
- Selected publications
- References

Educated at Swarthmore College and Harvard University, MacPherson received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1970. His thesis, written under the direction of Raoul Bott, was entitled Singularities of Maps and Characteristic Classes. Among his many Ph.D students are Kari Vilonen and Mark Goresky.
In 1992 MacPherson was awarded the NAS Award in Mathematics from the National Academy of Sciences. In 2002 he and Goresky were awarded the Leroy P. Steele Prize by the American Mathematical Society, in 2009 he received the Heinz Hopf Prize from ETH Zurich. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.