Yu Deng
Chinese mathematician (born 1989)
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Yu Deng (Chinese: 邓煜; pinyin: Dèng Yù, born June 1989) is a Chinese mathematician known for his contributions to partial differential equations, fluid dynamics, and probabilistic analysis. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 2026 for his derivation of the Boltzmann equation, his derivation of wave kinetic equations from nonlinear dispersive systems, and his development of probabilistic approaches to non-linear dynamics. He is a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago.
- Peking University (transferred)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (BS)
- Princeton University (PhD)
- Oberwolfach Prize (2025)
- Clay Research Award (2026)
- Fields Medal (2026)
Yu Deng | |
|---|---|
| 邓煜 | |
| Born | June 1989 (age 37) |
| Education |
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| Known for | Derivation of the Boltzmann equation |
| Awards |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Long time behavior of some nonlinear dispersive equations (2015) |
| Alexandru D. Ionescu | |
| Website | sites |
| Yu Deng | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | 邓煜 | ||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 鄧煜 | ||||||||
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Early life and education
Deng was born in June 1989[1] in China.[2] His father was a software engineer and his mother was a gastroenterologist.[1] He was raised in Shenzhen, Guangdong, and began participating in mathematics competitions in primary school.[3]
As a child, Deng excelled in tournaments of the Chinese strategy board game Go.[4] In 2001, while in middle school, he competed professionally but failed to qualify for the national Go tournament in China. He later recalled, "Either Go or math. Since I lost, I decided to move my focus to math."[1] As a first-year student at Shenzhen Senior High School, he won first prize at the Chinese Mathematical Olympiad.[5] He then represented China in the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad, where he won the gold medal at age 16.[4]
Granted exemption from the Gaokao, Deng was admitted to Peking University in 2007, alongside Hong Wang.[6] He was an undergraduate there until June 2009, transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics in 2011. He then earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University in 2015.[7] As a doctoral student at Princeton, Deng won a Jacobus Fellowship, the university's highest honor for graduate students.[8] His doctoral dissertation, completed under Alexandru D. Ionescu, was titled, "Long time behavior of some nonlinear dispersive equations".[7] Ionescu described Deng in 2015 as "a brilliant student".[9]
Academic career
After receiving his doctorate, Deng was an instructor at the Courant Institute School of Mathematics, Computing, and Data Science from 2015 to 2018. He became an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of Southern California in 2018 and a full professor there in April 2024. In September 2024, he joined the faculty of the University of Chicago as an associate professor of mathematics and was promoted to a full professorship in June 2025.[7]
Awards and honors
In 2021, Yu received a Sloan Research Fellowship in recognition of outstanding early-career research.[6] In 2025, he was awarded the Oberwolfach Prize for "his outstanding achievements in analysis and applied mathematics".[10] In 2026, he was awarded the Clay Research Award for "remarkable derivation of the Boltzmann equation for long times, starting from a system of hard spheres".[11]
On 23 July 2026, Yu was awarded the Fields Medal alongside Hong Wang, John Pardon, and Jacob Tsimerman at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[2] Along with Hong Wang, this marks the first time that a Chinese national received the award.[6]
For his work in partial differential equations, including the rigorous derivation of the Boltzmann equation from hard-sphere dynamics for rarefied gases, the derivation of wave kinetic equations from nonlinear dispersive systems, and probabilistic approaches to nonlinear Schrödinger dynamics.