Yitang Zhang

Yitang Zhang
Zhang in 2014
Born (1955-02-05) February 5, 1955
Shanghai, China
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materPeking University (BS, MA)
Purdue University (PhD)
Known forEstablishing the existence of an infinitely repeatable prime 2-tuple
AwardsOstrowski Prize (2013)
Cole Prize (2014)
Rolf Schock Prize (2014)
MacArthur Fellowship (2014)
Scientific career
FieldsNumber theory
InstitutionsUniversity of New Hampshire
University of California, Santa Barbara
Academia Sinica
ThesisThe Jacobian conjecture and the degree of field extension (1992)
Doctoral advisorTzuong-Tsieng Moh (莫宗堅)

Yitang Zhang (Chinese: 张益唐; born February 5, 1955) is a Chinese-American mathematician primarily working on number theory and a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 2015.

Previously working at the University of New Hampshire as a lecturer, Zhang submitted a paper to the Annals of Mathematics in 2013 which established the first finite bound on the least gap between consecutive primes that is attained infinitely often. This work led to a 2013 Ostrowski Prize, a 2014 Cole Prize, a 2014 Rolf Schock Prize, and a 2014 MacArthur Fellowship. Zhang became a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in fall 2015.