G. Neil Robertson is a mathematician working mainly in topological graph theory

Topological graph theory

In mathematics topological graph theory is a branch of graph theory. It studies the embedding of graphs in surfaces, spatial embeddings of graphs, and graphs as topological spaces. It also studies immersions of graphs....

, currently a distinguished professor at the Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

. He earned his Ph.D. in 1969 at the University of Waterloo

University of Waterloo

The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...

 under his doctoral advisor

Doctoral advisor

A doctoral advisor is an advanced member of a university faculty whose role is to guide a graduate student who is a candidate for a doctorate degree, helping them select coursework, as well as shaping, refining and directing the students' choice of sub-discipline...

 William Tutte. According to the criteria of the Erdős Number Project, Dr. Robertson has an Erdős number

Erdos number

The Erdős number describes the "collaborative distance" between a person and mathematician Paul Erdős, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers.The same principle has been proposed for other eminent persons in other fields.- Overview :...

 of 3, but it can be lowered to 2 if an obituary he coauthored with Arthur M. Hobbs is counted.

Biography

In 1969, Robertson joined the faculty of The Ohio State University, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1972 and Professor in 1984. He was a consultant with Bell Communications Research from 1984 to 1996. He has held visiting faculty positions in many institutions, most extensively at Princeton University from 1996 to 2001, and most recently at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, in 2002.

Invited or contributed presentations

• One week lecture series at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire: On the proof of the 4-color theorem, 2 hour lectures, and On the proof of the graph minor theorem, 2 hour lectures, November, 1994.
• AMS meeting at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida: Binary matroids of branch-width three, 20 minutes, March 1995.
• The R. C. Bose Memorial conference, Fort Collins, Colorado: The four-color theorem, 36 minutes, June 1995.
• The third Slovene international conference in graph theory, Bled, Slovenia: Results and problems about representativity of graph embeddings, 50 minutes, June 1995.
• The AMS, IMS, Siam Joint Summer Research Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington: Binary matroids of branch-width three, 45 minutes, July 1995.
• AMS meeting in Guanajuato, Mexico: Planar graphs on nonplanar surfaces", 20 minutes, November 1995.
• Some thoughts on Hadwiger's Conjecture. June 28, 1999.

Video

• Short conference video. Neil Robertson - Some thoughts on Hadwiger's Conjecture
  Hadwiger conjecture (graph theory)
  In graph theory, the Hadwiger conjecture states that, if all proper colorings of an undirected graph G use k or more colors, then one can find k disjoint connected subgraphs of G such that each subgraph is connected by an edge to each other subgraph...
  
  . June 28, 1999. Video produced by Bojan Mohar.

Theorem proofs

• Four color theorem
  Four color theorem
  In mathematics, the four color theorem, or the four color map theorem states that, given any separation of a plane into contiguous regions, producing a figure called a map, no more than four colors are required to color the regions of the map so that no two adjacent regions have the same color...
  
   (Full text)
• Robertson–Seymour theorem
  Robertson–Seymour theorem
  In graph theory, the Robertson–Seymour theorem states that the undirected graphs, partially ordered by the graph minor relationship, form a well-quasi-ordering...
  
   (Wagner's Conjecture)
• Hadwiger conjecture (graph theory)
  Hadwiger conjecture (graph theory)
  In graph theory, the Hadwiger conjecture states that, if all proper colorings of an undirected graph G use k or more colors, then one can find k disjoint connected subgraphs of G such that each subgraph is connected by an edge to each other subgraph...
  
  
• Strong Perfect Graph Theorem

Prizes

1. Fulkerson Prize
   Fulkerson Prize
   The Fulkerson Prize for outstanding papers in the area of discrete mathematics is sponsored jointly by the Mathematical Programming Society and the American Mathematical Society . Up to three awards of $1500 each are presented at each International Symposium of the MPS...
   
    (1994, 2006, 2009)
2. Pólya Prize (SIAM)
   Pólya Prize (SIAM)
   The Pólya Prize is a prize in mathematics, awarded by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. First given in 1969, the prize is named after Hungarian mathematician George Pólya...
   
    (2004)
3. Distinguished Scholar Award (OSU) (1997)
4. Alumni Achievement Medal (Waterloo) (2002)

External links

• Neil Robertson's homepage at Ohio State University
  Ohio State University
  The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...