Alan Reid (mathematician)


Alan William Reid (born June 14, 1962) is a Scottish-American mathematician working primarily with arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifolds. He is the Edgar Odell Lovett Chair of mathematics at Rice University, 2017—present.[1]

Alan William Reid
BornJune 14, 1962 (1962-06-14) (age 61)
NationalityScottish American
Alma materUniversity of Aberdeen
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsRice University
University of Texas, Austin
Thesis Arithmetic Kleinian Groups and their Fuchsian Subgroups  (1988)
Doctoral advisorColin Maclachlan

Biography edit

Reid grew up in Buckie, Scotland.[2] He obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen,[3] supervised by Colin Maclachlan,[4] on the topic of Arithmetic Kleinian Groups and their Fuchsian Subgroups. He was a Royal Society University Research Fellow at Cambridge 1992-96. He was awarded the Sloan Research Fellowship in 1997,[5] and became one of the (inaugural) Fellows of the American Mathematical Society in 2013.[6]

Research edit

Alan Reid's research primarily focusses on low-dimensional topology, hyperbolic manifolds and profinite groups. He proved that the figure-eight knot is the only knot whose complement is an arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifold.[7] With Martin Bridson, Ben McReynolds and Ryan Spitler, he found the first examples of non-elementary Kleinian groups which are determined by their finite quotients among finitely generated residually finite groups.[8]

He has published more than 100 papers,[9] and supervised 21 PhD students to completion as of 2023. [10] [11]

Notable publications edit

  • MacLachlan, Colin; Reid, Alan W. (2003). The Arithmetic of Hyperbolic 3-Manifolds. Graduate Texts in Mathematics. Vol. 219. doi:10.1007/978-1-4757-6720-9. ISBN 978-1-4419-3122-1. with Colin Maclachlan.

Awards and honours edit

References edit

External links edit