In Memoriam: Steve Zelditch 1953–2022

Abstract

IN MEMORIAM: STEVE ZELDITCH 1953–2022 Photo courtesy of JHU Mathematics Steve Zelditch passed away on September 11, 2022, just two days shy of his 69th birthday. He was a very prolific and broad mathematician who made several seminal contributions. Most notably, he was a pioneer in the theory of quantum chaos starting with his breakthrough 1987 paper on quantum ergodicity for Riemann surfaces that was written shortly after he received his PhD. Steve also made fundamental contributions to many other fields, including global analysis, complex geometry, and mathematical physics. Steve was an important contributor to the American Journal of Mathematics, serving as an associate editor starting in 1999, and then as a full editor in 2003. He performed a similar service for many other journals, including the Annales Scientifiques de l’École Normale Supérieure, Analysis & PDE, Communications in Mathematical Physics, Journal of Geometric Analysis, Journal of Mathematical Physics, and Pure and Applied Mathematics Quarterly. He was a member of the Johns Hopkins University’s Mathematics Department from 1985 to 2010, and served as department chair from 1999 to 2002. In 2010, he moved to Northwestern University and became the Wayne and Elizabeth Jones Professor of Mathematics there. In the citation for the 2013 Stefan Bergman prize, which Steve won, his “strikingly original vision” was lauded, and, further, that he had found “deep and diverse relations between the Bergman kernel and many other areas, including complex geometry , probability, and mathematical physics.” Steve was also an invited speaker iii at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Beijing in 2002, and in 2013 he was named as an inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. The American Journal of Mathematics and the mathematical community mourn the loss of such an important and generous colleague. He will be greatly missed. Chris Sogge, Editor-in-Chief, Amer. J. Math. iv ...