Sorin Popa

Template:Short description Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox scientistSorin Teodor Popa (born March 24, 1953) is a Romanian American mathematician working on Von Neumann algebras, C*-algebras, and ergodic theory. More recently he developed deformation-rigidity theory in von Neumann algebras. He is a distinguished professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he holds the Takesaki Chair in Operator Algebras. He was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025.

Biography

Popa earned his PhD from the University of Bucharest in 1983 under the supervision of Dan-Virgil Voiculescu, with thesis Studiul unor clase de subalgebre ale $C^{\ast }$-algebrelor. He has advised 15 doctoral students at UCLA, including Adrian Ioana.

Honors and awards

In 1990, Popa was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) in Kyoto, where he gave a talk on "Subfactors and Classifications in von Neumann algebras". He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1995. In 2006, he gave a plenary lecture at the ICM in Madrid on "Deformation and Rigidity for group actions and Von Neumann Algebras". In 2009, he was awarded the Ostrowski Prize, and in 2010 the E. H. Moore Prize. He is one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society. In 2013, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In the Spring of 2025 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Selected publications

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External links

• Homepage of Sorin Popa at the University of California, Los Angeles
• UCLA – Sorin Popa elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences