Donald Andrew Dawson (born June 4, 1937) is a Canadian mathematician, specializing in probability.

Donald Andrew Dawson
Born (1937-06-04) June 4, 1937 (age 87)
EducationMcGill University
MIT
Scientific career
InstitutionsRaytheon
McGill University
Carleton University
Thesis Constructions of Diffusions with Specified Mean Hitting Times and Hitting Probabilities  (1963)
Doctoral advisorHenry McKean
Doctoral studentsBrenda MacGibbon

Education and career

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Dawson received in 1958 his bachelor's degree and in 1959 his master's degree from McGill University and in 1963 his PhD from MIT under Henry McKean with thesis Constructions of Diffusions with Specified Mean Hitting Times and Hitting Probabilities.[1] In 1962/63 he was an engineer in the aerospace department of Raytheon. At McGill University he became in 1963 an assistant professor and in 1967 an associate professor. At Carleton University he became in 1970 an associate professor and in 1971 a professor, working in this position until 1996.

From 1996 to 2000 Dawson was the director of the Fields Institute and during these years also an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. From 2000 to 2010 he was an adjunct professor at McGill University.

Research

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Dawson works on stochastic processes, measure-valued processes, and hierarchical stochastic systems with applications in information systems, genetics, evolutionary biology, and economics. He has written 8 monographs and over 150 refereed publications.

In 1994 he was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Zürich with lecture Interaction and hierarchy in measure-valued processes. From 2003 to 2005 he was the president of the Bernoulli Society.

Honors and awards

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Selected works

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  • with Edwin A. Perkins: Measure-valued processes and Renormalization of Branching Particle Systems, in R. Carmona, B. Rozovskii Stochastic Partial Differential Equations: Six Perspectives, American Mathematical Society Mathematical Surveys and Monographs, vol. 64, 1999, pp. 45–106.
  • with J. T. Cox, A. Greven: Mutually catalytic super branching random walks: large finite systems and renormalization analysis, American Mathematical Society 2004
  • as editor: Measure-valued processes, stochastic partial differential equations, and interacting systems, American Mathematical Society 1994
  • with Edwin Perkins: Historical processes, American Mathematical Society 1991
  • with J. Gärtner: Large deviations, free energy functional and quasi-potential for a mean field model of interacting diffusions, American Mathematical Society 1989

References

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  1. ^ Donald Andrew Dawson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. ^ Canadian Mathematical Society Inaugural Class of Fellows, Canadian Mathematical Society, December 7, 2018
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