Michael Handel is an American mathematician known for his work in Geometric group theory. He is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Lehman College of the City University of New York and a Professor of Mathematics at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Michael Handel
Born
Alma materBrandeis University (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known forDynamical Systems
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics
InstitutionsLehman College
CUNY Graduate Center
Thesis A Resolution of Two Stratification Conjectures Concerning CS Sets  (1975)
Doctoral advisorRobion Kirby

Career

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Michael Handel graduated with a B.A. in mathematics from Brandeis University in 1971.[1]  He received his Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley, in 1975 under the supervision of Robion Kirby.[2]  From 1975 to 1978, he was an instructor at Princeton University. He joined the faculty of Michigan State University as an Assistant Professor in 1978,[3]  and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1983.[4]  Handel was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study from 1978 to 1979, and again from 1987 to 1988.[5]  In 1990, he joined the Mathematics Department at Lehman College.

Handel is best known for developing the Train track map method in Geometric group theory in collaboration with Mladen Bestvina in 1992.[6]  Bestvina, Feighn and Handel later proved that the group Out(Fn) satisfies the Tits alternative, settling a long-standing open problem.[7][8]

Awards and honors

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Selected publications

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Institute for Advanced Study Annual Report 1984" (PDF). Retrieved August 18, 2020.
  2. ^ Michael Handel at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ "Michigan State Spartan History" (PDF). September 21, 1978. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
  4. ^ "Michigan State Spartan History" (PDF). May 26, 1983. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
  5. ^ "Michael Handel at the Institute for Advanced Study". 9 December 2019. Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  6. ^ Mladen Bestvina, and Michael Handel, Train tracks and automorphisms of free groups. Annals of Mathematics (2), volume 135 (1992), number 1, pages 1–51
  7. ^ Mladen Bestvina, Mark Feighn, and Michael Handel. The Tits alternative for Out(Fn). I. Dynamics of exponentially-growing automorphisms. Annals of Mathematics (2), volume 151 (2000), number 2, pages 517–623
  8. ^ Mladen Bestvina, Mark Feighn, and Michael Handel. The Tits alternative for Out(Fn). II. A Kolchin type theorem. Annals of Mathematics (2), volume 161 (2005), number 1, pages 1–59
  9. ^ "Past Sloan Fellows". Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  10. ^ "Fellows of the American Mathematical Society". Retrieved August 14, 2020.
  11. ^ "Two GC Professors Named Fellows of the American Mathematical Society for 2014". Retrieved August 14, 2020.
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