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Laurent Lafforgue
Born	6 November 1966 (1966-11-06) (age 43) Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	CNRS
Alma mater	Université de Paris-Sud École Normale Supérieure
Known for	Proof of Langlands conjectures
Notable awards	Clay Research Award (2000) Fields Medal (2002)

Laurent Lafforgue (born 6 November 1966, in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, France) is a French mathematician.

He won 2 silver medals at International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in 1984 and 1985. He entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1986. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. under the direction of Gérard Laumon in the Arithmetic and Algebraic Geometry team at the Université de Paris-Sud. Currently he is a research director of CNRS, detached as permanent professor of mathematics at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques (I.H.E.S.) in Bures-sur-Yvette, France.

In 2002 at the 24th International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing, China he received the Fields Medal together with Vladimir Voevodsky. Lafforgue made outstanding contributions to Langlands' program in the fields of number theory and analysis, and in particular proved the Langlands conjectures for GL_n of a function field. The crucial contribution by Lafforgue to solve this question is the construction of compactifications of certain moduli stacks of shtukas. The monumental proof is the result of more than six years of concentrated efforts.

He received the Clay Research Award in 2000.

Lafforgue is a critic of what he calls "pedagogically correct" in France's educational system.

References

• Lafforgue, L. Chtoucas de Drinfeld et applications. [Drinfeld shtukas and applications] Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. II (Berlin, 1998). Doc. Math. 1998, Extra Vol. II, 563--570
• Lafforgue, Laurent Chtoucas de Drinfeld, formule des traces d'Arthur-Selberg et correspondance de Langlands. [Drinfeld shtukas, Arthur-Selberg trace formula and Langlands correspondence] Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, Vol. I (Beijing, 2002), 383--400, Higher Ed. Press, Beijing, 2002.
• Gérard Laumon, The work of Laurent Lafforgue, Proceedings of the ICM, Beijing 2002, vol. 1, 91--97
• Gérard Laumon La correspondance de Langlands sur les corps de fonctions (d'après Laurent Lafforgue), Séminaire Bourbaki, 52e année, 1999-2000, no. 873

External links

• Laurent Lafforgue at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• official home page (in French)
• Lafforgue and education in France L’Affaire Lafforgue (in Portuguese)