David Eisenbud

David Eisenbud, born in New York City on 8 April 1947, is an American mathematician known for his work in algebra, algebraic geometry and symbolic computation. He studied at the University of Chicago, took his bachelor's degree in 1966 and his doctorate in 1970 with a thesis on non-commutative ring theory, working under Saunders Mac Lane with unofficial help from J. C. Robson. He taught at Brandeis University for twenty-seven years, then in 1997 became director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley and a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and he served as president of the American Mathematical Society from 2003 to 2005. His books include Commutative Algebra with a View Toward Algebraic Geometry, which earned him the 2010 AMS Steele Prize, and The Geometry of Schemes and The Geometry of Syzygies. With Buchsbaum he proved a criterion for the exactness of finite free complexes, and with Joe Harris he developed the theory of limit linear series. He is also a keen juggler and singer of art songs.