Allen Hatcher, emeritus professor of mathematics in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been awarded the inaugural Elias M. Stein Prize for Transformative Exposition by the American Mathematical Society. The $5,000 prize will be presented at the 2025 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle.

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Hatcher, a geometric topologist, will receive the award for his book, “Algebraic Topology,” published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press.

“Allen Hatcher’s ‘Algebraic Topology’ has transformed the teaching of this topic with its lively mix of intuition, salient examples, and formal mathematics,” according to the prize citation. “Its careful approach and spirit of fun has attracted many newcomers to the field.”

The textbook is “a global classic…the source from which the majority of students worldwide have learned the subject in the last 25 years,” said Martin Bridson M.A. ’89, Ph.D. ’91, the Whitehead Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Oxford and the president of the Clay Mathematics Institute.

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.