Shiing-Shen Chern

Shiing-Shen Chern 陳省身
Chern in 1988
Born	(1911-10-26)October 26, 1911 Jiaxing, Zhejiang, Qing China
Died	December 3, 2004(2004-12-03) (aged 93) Tianjin, China
Citizenship	United States
Education	Nankai University (BS) University of Hamburg (PhD)
Known for	Chern class Chern–Gauss–Bonnet theorem Chern–Simons theory Chern–Simons form Chern–Weil theory Chern–Weil homomorphism Chern's conjecture Chern's conjecture (differential geometry) Bott–Chern cohomology Chern–Bott formula Chern–Lashof theory
Children	2
Awards	Chauvenet Prize (1970) National Medal of Science (1975) Wolf Prize (1983) Lobachevsky Medal (2002) Shaw Prize (2004) ForMemRS (1985)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Tsinghua University Institute for Advanced Study University of Chicago University of California, Berkeley Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Nankai University Chern Institute of Mathematics
Thesis	Eine Invariantentheorie der Dreigewebe aus r-dimensionalen Mannigfaltigkeiten im ${\displaystyle R_{2r}}$
Doctoral advisor	Wilhelm Blaschke
Doctoral students	Louis Auslander Thomas Banchoff Manfredo do Carmo Robert B. Gardner Howard Garland Harold Levine Katsumi Nomizu William F. Pohl Alexandre Augusto Martins Rodrigues Bernard Shiffman Liao Shantao Sidney M. Webster Alan Weinstein Joseph Wolf Shing-Tung Yau Shiu-Yuen Cheng Peter Wai-Kwong Li
Other notable students	James Simons Chen Ning Yang
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	陳省身
Simplified Chinese	陈省身
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Chén Xǐngshēn Bopomofo ㄔㄣˊ ㄒㄧㄥˇ ㄕㄣ Gwoyeu Romatzyh Chern Shiing-Shen Wade–Giles Ch'en Hsing-shen

Shiing-Shen Chern (/tʃɜːrn/; Chinese: 陳省身; pinyin: Chén Xǐngshēn; October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004) was a Chinese-born American mathematician and poet. He made fundamental contributions to differential geometry and topology. He has been called the "father of modern differential geometry" and is widely regarded as a leader in geometry and one of the greatest mathematicians of the twentieth century, winning numerous awards and recognition including the Wolf Prize and the inaugural Shaw Prize. In memory of Shiing-Shen Chern, the International Mathematical Union established the Chern Medal in 2010 to recognize "an individual whose accomplishments warrant the highest level of recognition for outstanding achievements in the field of mathematics."

Chern worked at the Institute for Advanced Study (1943–45), spent about a decade at the University of Chicago (1949-1960), and then moved to University of California, Berkeley, where he cofounded the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1982 and was the institute's founding director. Renowned coauthors with Chern include Jim Simons, an American mathematician and billionaire hedge fund manager. Chern's work, most notably the Chern–Gauss–Bonnet theorem, Chern–Simons theory, and Chern classes, are still highly influential in current research in mathematics, including geometry, topology, and knot theory, as well as many branches of physics, including string theory, condensed matter physics, general relativity, and quantum field theory.