Isadore Manuel Singer (born April 24, 1924) is an Institute Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is noted for his work with Michael Atiyah proving the Atiyah–Singer index theorem in 1962, which paved the way for new interactions between pure mathematics and theoretical physics.
He was born in Detroit, Michigan, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in 1944. After obtaining his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948 and 1950 respectively, he taught at UCLA and MIT, where he has spent the majority of his career.
He was chair of the Committee of Science & Public Policy of the United States National Academy of Sciences, a member of the White House Science Council (1982–88), and on the Governing Board of the United States National Research Council (1995–99). Singer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Among the awards he has received are the Bôcher Memorial Prize (1969) and the Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2000), both from the American Mathematical Society, the Eugene Wigner Medal (1988), the National Medal of Science (1983), the Abel Prize (2004, shared with Michael Atiyah), and the James Rhyne Killian Faculty Achievement Award from MIT (2005). He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
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—Isaac Bashevis Singer (20th century)