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William P. Thurston is an American mathematician, born October 30 1946 in Washington, D.C. He received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. His advisor was Morris W. Hirsch.
He is currently a professor at Cornell University. Previously he was at UC Davis, from 1996 to 2003. In the interim, he has taught both at Berkeley and Princeton and advised such accomplished geometers as David Gabai, Yair Minsky, Robert Meyerhoff, and Oded Schramm.
In 1982, he was awarded the Fields medal for the depth and originality of his contributions to mathematics. His fresh insights have linked many apparently disparate fields to 3-manifolds. Thurston's Geometrization Conjecture (and all it entails) revolutionized 3-manifold theory, reviving hyperbolic geometry. His early work was mainly in foliation theory, where he proved, amongst other things, that any n-manifold with Euler characteristic zero has a codimension one foliation.
Thurston has turned his attention in recent years to mathematical education and bringing mathematics to the general public. He has served as mathematics editor for Quantum magazine, a youth science magazine, and as head of the University of Minnesota Geometry Center.
