doctoral_advisor work_institution field known_for prizes article_title name alma_mater
shing-tung yau columbia university differential geometry general relativity quasilocal mass-energy higher co-dimensional mean curvature flow morningside prize gold medal of mathematics sloan research fellow chern mu-tao wang
 mu-tao wang -lrb- 王慕道 -rrb- national taiwan university harvard university
mu-tao wang

mu-tao wang -lrb- -rrb- is a taiwanese mathematician and current professor of mathematics at columbia university .
he entered national taiwan university in 1984 , originally for technology , but after a year he switched to mathematics .
he earned his bs in mathematics at national taiwan university in 1988 and his ms from the same institution in 1992 .
he received a phd in mathematics in 1998 from harvard university with a thesis entitled `` generalized harmonic maps and representations of discrete groups . ''
his thesis adviser at harvard was chinese fields medalist and differential geometer shing-tung yau .
wang joined the columbia faculty as an assistant professor in 2001 , and was appointed full professor in 2009 .
before joining the faculty at columbia , wang was szego assistant professor at stanford university .
wang 's research is focused in the fields of differential geometry and mathematical physics , specifically general relativity .
he has studied higher co-dimensional mean curvature flow extensively , leading to criteria relating to the flow 's existence , regularity , and convergence .
in the field of general relativity , he is especially known for his work on quasilocal mass-energy ; the wang-yau quasi-local mass is named in his honor .
he was sloan research fellow from 2003 -- 2005 .
in 2007 , he was named a kavli fellow of the national academy of sciences and was awarded the chern prize .
wang is a fellow of the american mathematical society and won the morningside gold medal of mathematics in 2010 .
in 2010 , wang delivered the plenary address at the international congress of chinese mathematicians , and was plenary speaker at the international congress on mathematical physics .
in addition , he was also plenary speaker at the international conference on differential geometry in 2011 .
after winning the morningside medal , wang told interviewers that he did not consider himself a particularly good student and did not consistently make good grades .
he struggled with studying topics which did not interest him just for the grade , but spends a lot of time on subjects which interested him .
he credits his career in mathematics to two people : his mother and his thesis adviser shing-tung yau .
he cites his mother 's support and understanding of his decision to switch to mathematics in university despite it being a much less lucrative field , and describes meeting yau in 1992 as the pivotal point in his life when he decided to make mathematics research his primary focus .
