Noam David Elkies

Noam David Elkies is a number theorist and Harvard mathematics professor, celebrated as a prodigy (IMO gold 1981-82, Putnam Fellow) who became Harvard's youngest tenured professor at 26. His research centers on elliptic curves, integer points, and connections between number theory, algebraic geometry, lattices and coding theory.

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• Represented the USA at the IMO twice: 1981 in Washington DC (rank 1, perfect 42/42, gold, age 14) and 1982 in Budapest (rank 4, 40 points, gold).
• Became the youngest person ever to receive tenure at Harvard, at age 26.
• Elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2017; research spans number theory and its connections to algebraic geometry, Euclidean lattices and coding theory, notably K3 surfaces of large Picard number.
• Won the 1981 IMO with a perfect score at 14 and a second gold in 1982, then set a Harvard record as youngest tenured professor at 26 - a prodigy-to-faculty trajectory unusually compressed even for mathematics.
• PhD (1987) at Harvard under Benedict Gross and Barry Mazur; doctoral student Henry Cohn.
• Graduated Stuyvesant High School in 1982 at age 15, then won the Putnam competition at age 16 years 4 months, one of the youngest Putnam Fellows ever.
• A chess national master (master at age 20) and chess composer, and an accomplished pianist and composer; music and chess are genuine parallel pursuits, not hobbies.
• Born in New York City in 1966 to an engineer father and a piano teacher mother; moved to Ramat Gan, Israel in 1970, returned to New York in 1978, and has lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts since 1985.