Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman | |
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Born | |
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | B.A., Barnard College, 1948 Ph.D., Courant Institute (NYU), 1968 |
Known for | Braid theory, knot theory |
Awards |
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Scientific career | |
Fields | Mathematics |
Institutions | Barnard College, Columbia University, University of Haifa |
Doctoral advisor | Wilhelm Magnus |
Doctoral students | |
Website | http://www.math.columbia.edu/~jb/ |
Joan Sylvia Lyttle Birman (born May 30, 1927, in New York City[1]) is an American mathematician, specializing in low-dimensional topology. She has made contributions to the study of knots, 3-manifolds, mapping class groups of surfaces, geometric group theory, contact structures and dynamical systems. Birman is research professor emerita at Barnard College, Columbia University,[2] where she has been since 1973.