He introduced the Steinberg representation, the Lang–Steinberg theorem, the Steinberg group in algebraic K-theory, Steinberg's formula in representation theory, and the Steinberg groups in Lie theory that yield finite simple groups over finite fields.
He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1948. He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in 1966, won the Steele Prize in 1985, was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1985, and won the Jeffery–Williams Prize in 1990. He retired from UCLA in 1992. In 2003 the Journal of Algebra published a special issue to celebrate Robert Steinberg's 80th birthday.
Selected publications
"A geometric approach to the representations of the full linear group over a Galois field". Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 71: 274–282. 1951. MR 0043784. doi:10.1090/s0002-9947-1951-0043784-0.
"A general Clebsch–Gordan theorem". Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 67 (4): 406–407. 1961. MR 0126508. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1961-10644-7.
"Complete sets of representations of algebras". Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 13: 746–747. 1962. MR 0141710. doi:10.1090/s0002-9939-1962-0141710-x.
"A closure property of sets of vectors". Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 105: 118–125. 1962. MR 0165040. doi:10.1090/s0002-9947-1962-0165040-x.
Steinberg, Robert (1962). "Générateurs, relations et revêtements de groupes algébriques". Colloq. Théorie des Groupes Algébriques (in French). Bruxelles: Gauthier-Villars: 113–127. MR 0153677. Zbl 0272.20036.
Steinberg, Robert (2017) [1968], Lectures on Chevalley groups, University Lecture Series, 66, American Mathematical Society, ISBN 978-1-4704-3105-1, MR 0466335
Steinberg, Robert (1974), Conjugacy classes in algebraic groups., Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 366, Berlin-New York: Springer-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-540-06657-6, MR 0352279, doi:10.1007/BFb0067854
"An occurrence of the Robinson-Schensted correspondence". Journal of Algebra. 113 (2): 523–528. 1988. doi:10.1016/0021-8693(88)90177-9.
R. Steinberg, Collected Papers, Amer. Math. Soc. (1997), ISBN 0-8218-0576-2.
