James Lepowsky (born 1944 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

) is a professor of mathematics at Rutgers University

Rutgers University

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

. Previously he taught at Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

. He received his Ph.D from M.I.T. in 1970 where his advisor was Bertram Kostant

Bertram Kostant

-Early life and education:Kostant grew up in New York City, where he graduated from the celebrated Stuyvesant High School in 1945. He went on to obtain an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Purdue University in 1950. He earned his Ph.D...

. Lepowsky graduated from Stuyvesant High School

Stuyvesant High School

Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...

 in 1961, 16 years after Kostant. His current research is in the areas of infinite-dimensional lie algebras and vertex algebras

Vertex operator algebra

In mathematics, a vertex operator algebra is an algebraic structure that plays an important role in conformal field theory and related areas of physics...

. He has written several books on vertex algebras and related topics. In 1988, in a joint work with Igor Frenkel

Igor Frenkel

Igor Borisovich Frenkel is a mathematician at Yale University working in representation theory and mathematical physics.-Biography:...

 and Arne Meurman

Arne Meurman

Arne Meurman is a Swedish mathematician working on finite groups and vertex operator algebras. Currently he is a professor at Lund University....

, he constructed the monster vertex algebra

Monster vertex algebra

The monster vertex algebra is a vertex algebra acted on by the monster group that was constructed by Igor Frenkel, James Lepowsky, and Arne Meurman. R...

 (also known as Moonshine module). His students include Yi-Zhi Huang and Arne Meurman

Arne Meurman

Arne Meurman is a Swedish mathematician working on finite groups and vertex operator algebras. Currently he is a professor at Lund University....

.

External links

• Entry at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.