Geordie Williamson
Geordie Williamson (born 1981 in Bowral, Australia)
is an Australian mathematician at the University of Geordie Williamson
FRS FAA
Sydney.[1][2][3] He became the youngest living Fellow
of the Royal Society when he was elected in 2018 at
the age of 36.[4]
Education
Educated at Chevalier College,[5] Williamson
graduated in 1999 with a UAI of 99.45.[6] He studied
at the University of Sydney and graduated with a
Bachelor's degree in 2003 and then at the Albert-
Ludwigs University of Freiburg, where he received his
doctorate in 2008 under the supervision of Wolfgang
Soergel.[7][8] Williamson is the brother of the late
James Williamson, a World Solo 24-hour mountain
bike champion who died while competing in South
Africa in 2010.[9] Williamson in 2018
Born 1981 (age 42–43)
Bowral, Australia
Research and career
Education Chevalier College
After his PhD, Williamson was a post-doctoral Alma mater University of Sydney
researcher at the University of Oxford, based at St. University of Freiburg
Peter's College, Oxford and from 2011 until 2016 he Awards Clay Research Award (2016)
was at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics. New Horizons in Mathematics
Prize (2017)
Williamson deals with a geometric representation of
group theory. With Ben Elias, he gave a new proof and Scientific career
a simplification of the theory of the Kazhdan–Lusztig Institutions University of Sydney
conjectures (previously proved in 1981 by both University of Oxford
Beilinson–Bernstein and Brylinski–Kashiwara). For Max Planck Institute for
this purpose, they built on works by Wolfgang Soergel Mathematics
and developed a purely algebraic Hodge theory of Thesis Singular Soergel bimodules (http
Soergel bimodules about polynomial rings, In this s://[Link]/oclc/315589
context, they also succeeded in proving the long- 361) (2008)
standing positive presumption of positivity for the Website [Link]/u
coefficients of the Kazhdan–Lusztig polynomials for /geordie ([Link]
Coxeter groups. For Weyl groups (special Coxeter [Link]/u/geordie)
groups, which are connected to Lie groups), David
Kazhdan and George Lusztig succeeded in doing so by identifying the polynomials with certain
invariants (local intersection cohomology) of Schubert varieties. Elias and Williamson were able to
follow this path of proof also for more general groups of reflection (Coxeter groups), although there is no
geometrical interpretation in contrast to the case of the Weyl groups.
He is also known for several counterexamples. In 1980, Lusztig suggested a character formula for simple
modules of reductive groups over fields of finite characteristic p. The conjecture was proved in 1994-95
by a combination of three papers, one by Henning Haahr Andersen, Jens Carsten Jantzen, and Wolfgang
Soergel, one by David Kazhdan and George Lusztig and one by Masaki Kashiwara and Toshiyuki
Tanisaki for sufficiently large group-specific characteristics (without explicit bound) and later by Peter
Fiebig for a very high explicitly stated bound. Williamson found several infinite families of
counterexamples to the generally suspected validity limits of Lusztig's conjecture. He also found
counterexamples to a 1990 conjecture of Gordon James on symmetric groups. His work also provided
new perspectives on the respective conjectures. In 2023 he was awarded an Australian Laureate
Fellowship to further his research into fundamental symmetries.[10]
Publications
Ben Elias; Geordie Williamson (2014), "The Hodge Theory of Soergel bimodules", Annals of
Mathematics, 180 (3): 1089–1136, arXiv:1212.0791 ([Link]
Williamson, Geordie (2017), "Schubert calculus and torsion explosion (With Appendix by A.
Kontorovich, P. McNamara, G. Williamson)", Journal of the American Mathematical Society,
30: 1023–1046, arXiv:1309.5055 ([Link] doi:10.1090/jams/868 (ht
tps://[Link]/10.1090%2Fjams%2F868)
Williamson, Geordie (2012), "Modular intersection cohomology complexes on flag varieties
(With Appendix by Tom Braden)", Mathematische Zeitschrift, 272: 697–727,
arXiv:0709.0207 ([Link] doi:10.1007/s00209-011-0955-y ([Link]
[Link]/10.1007%2Fs00209-011-0955-y)
Williamson, Geordie (2014), "On an analogue of the James conjecture", Representation
Theory, 18 (2): 15–27, arXiv:1212.0794 ([Link]
doi:10.1090/S1088-4165-2014-00447-3 ([Link]
7-3)
Ben Elias; Geordie Williamson (2016), "Kazhdan-Lusztig conjectures and shadows of
Hodge theory", in Werner Ballmann; Christian Blohmann; Gerd Faltings; Peter Teichner;
Don Zagier (eds.), Arbeitstagung Bonn 2013: In Memory of Friedrich Hirzebruch, Progress
in Mathematics, vol. 319, Birkhäuser, pp. 105–126, arXiv:1403.1650 ([Link]
03.1650), doi:10.1007/978-3-319-43648-7_5 ([Link]
7_5), ISBN 978-3-319-43646-3
Daniel Juteau; Carl Mautner (2014), "Parity sheaves", Journal of the American Mathematical
Society, 27 (4): 1169–1212, arXiv:0906.2994 ([Link]
doi:10.1090/S0894-0347-2014-00804-3 ([Link]
4-3)
Awards and honours
In 2016, he received the Chevalley Prize of the American Mathematical Society[11] and the Clay
Research Award.[12] He is an invited speaker at the European Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin 2016
(Shadows of Hodge theory in representation theory). In 2016 he was awarded the EMS Prize, for 2017 he
was awarded the New Horizons in Mathematics Prize. In 2018, he was plenary speaker at the
International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio de Janeiro and was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society (FRS) and the Australian Academy of Science.[13] Williamson was awarded the 2018 Australian
Mathematical Society Medal, the NSW Premier's Prizes for Science & Engineering: Excellence in
Mathematics, Earth Sciences, Chemistry or Physics in 2022 [14] and the Max Planck-Humboldt Research
Award in 2024.[15]
References
1. "Geordie Williamson" ([Link]
2. Notices AMS, 2016, Nr.4, Chevalley-Preis für Williamson, pdf ([Link]
ns/journals/notices/201604/[Link])
3. "Professor Geordie Williamson" ([Link]
University of Sydney. 11 April 2013.
4. "Professor Geordie Williamson elected Fellow of the Royal Society" ([Link]
ews-opinion/news/2018/05/10/professor-geordie-williamson-elected-fellow-of-the-royal-socie
[Link]). University of Sydney. 10 May 2018.
5. "Past Chev student to become Royal Society's youngest Fellow" ([Link]
[Link]/past-chev-student-becomes-royal-societys-youngest-fellow/). ChevNews. Chevalier
College. 14 May 2018. Retrieved 11 May 2019.
6. Elliott, Tim (13 July 2018). "Maths prodigy comes home to establish $5 million world-class
maths centre" ([Link]
[Link]). The Sydney Morning Herald.
Retrieved 18 March 2022.
7. Williamson, Geordie (2008). Singular Soergel Bimodules (PhD thesis). OCLC 315589361 (h
ttps://[Link]/oclc/315589361).
8. Geordie Williamson ([Link] at the Mathematics
Genealogy Project
9. Kogoy, Peter (26 March 2010). "Cycling mourns the loss of James Williamson" ([Link]
[Link]/sport/cycling-mourns-the-loss-of-james-williamson/news-story/6b068c
ea873a8445d0b82ba3eb58859d). The Australian.
10. "2023 Laureate Profile: Professor Geordie Williamson" ([Link]
arch/funding-schemes/discovery-program/australian-laureate-fellowships/2023-laureate-prof
ile-professor-geordie-williamson). Australian Research Council. Retrieved 4 July 2023.
11. "Geordie Williamson to Receive 2016 AMS Chevalley Prize" ([Link]
e/node/6355). Max Planck Institute for Mathematics.
12. "Clay Mathematics Institute Research Awards" ([Link]
13. "Professor Geordie Williamson" ([Link]
ordie-williamson). Australian Academy of Science.
14. "Leading neuroscientist Glenda Halliday named NSW Scientist of the Year" ([Link]
[Link]/web/20221102190719/[Link]
t-glenda-halliday-named-nsw-scientist-of-year). NSW Government. 2 November 2022.
Archived from the original ([Link]
enda-halliday-named-nsw-scientist-of-year) on 2 November 2022. Retrieved 2 November
2022.
15. "Awards all around: AI in mathematics, microscopy and climate research" ([Link]
de/23445058/max-planck-humboldt-research-award-2024). [Link]. Retrieved
5 December 2024.
Retrieved from "[Link]
