John G. Thompson

John Griggs Thompson (born 13 October 1932) is an American mathematician at the University of Florida, noted for his work in the field of finite groups. He received his bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1955 and his doctorate from the University of Chicago in 1959 under Saunders Mac Lane. His doctoral thesis introduced new techniques and solved a problem in finite group theory that had stood for around sixty years, the nilpotency of Frobenius kernels. He took up the Rouse Ball Professorship at the University of Cambridge in 1970 and later moved to the University of Florida. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970, the Wolf Prize in 1992, and the Abel Prize in 2008, which he shared with Jacques Tits.