Mikhail Gromov

Mikhael Leonidovich Gromov (born 23 December 1943 in Boksitogorsk, Soviet Union), also written Mikhail Gromov, is a Russian-French mathematician known for his work in geometry, analysis and group theory. He studied mathematics at Leningrad State University, where he obtained a master's degree in 1965, and as a nine-year-old was influenced by a book on the enjoyment of mathematics by Hans Rademacher and Otto Toeplitz that his mother gave him. He is a permanent member of the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in France and a professor of mathematics at New York University. Among several prizes he won the Abel Prize in 2009 for his revolutionary contributions to geometry.