Robert McCann (mathematician)

Robert John McCann FRSC is a Canadian mathematician, known for his work in transportation theory. He has worked as a professor at the University of Toronto since 1998, and as Canada Research Chair in Mathematics, Economics, and Physics since 2020.

Robert J. McCann
NationalityCanadian
Alma materPrinceton University
AwardsAMS Centennial Fellowship (1996)
Monroe Martin Prize (2000)
Coxeter–James Prize (2005)
Jeffery–Williams Prize (2017)
W.T. and Idalia Reid Prize (2023)
Scientific career
FieldsApplied mathematics
InstitutionsUniversity of Toronto
ThesisA Convexity Theory For Interacting Gases And Equilibrium Crystals (1994)
Doctoral advisorElliott H. Lieb

Life and work

McCann was raised in Windsor, Ontario. He studied engineering and physics at Queen's University before graduating with a degree in math, and earned a PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 1994.[1] McCann was a Tamarkin Assistant Professor at Brown University from 1994, before joining the University of Toronto Department of Mathematics in the fall of 1998.[2] He served as editor-in-chief of the Canadian Journal of Mathematics from 2007 to 2016.[3] He was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul in 2014.[4] He was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society in 2012, of the Royal Society of Canada in 2014, of the Fields Institute in 2015 and of the Canadian Mathematical Society in 2020.

He invented the displacement interpolation between probability measures and studied the convexity of various entropies and energies along it, later linking these to Ricci curvature and eventually to the Einstein equations of general relativity. He has pioneered applications of optimal transport to economic problems such as hedonic matching, investment to match, and multidimensional screening.

References
  1. "Scientific Advisory Panel". The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. 24 December 2014. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  2. "New Faculty Appointments" (PDF). Mathematics. Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto: 4–5. July 2000.
  3. "Professor Robert McCann to receive the 2017 CMS Jeffery-Williams Prize". Ottawa: Canadian Mathematical Society. 23 February 2017. Retrieved 3 June 2019.
  4. McCann, Robert J. (2014). "Academic wages, singularities, phase transitions and pyramid schemes". Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians (Seoul 2014). Vol. 3. pp. 835–849.


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