McMullen, Curtis

Curtis McMullen, (born May 21, 1958, Berkeley, Calif., U.S.), American mathematician who won the Fields Medal in 1998 for his work in dynamics.

McMullen studied mathematics at Williams College and received his doctorate (1985) from Harvard University. Afterward he taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, the University of California at Berkeley, and Harvard.

McMullen first used the methods of dynamical systems theory to show that generally convergent algorithms for solving polynomial equations exist only for polynomials of degree 3 or less. He then studied one-dimensional complex dynamics and went on to apply similar ideas to fellow Fields Medalist William Thurston’s geometric program for three-manifolds, where he showed that a large class of manifolds admit a hyperbolic structure, as the program predicts.

His publications include Complex Dynamics and Renormalization (1995) and Renormalization and 3-Manifolds which Fiber over the Circle (1996).