Introduction
Robert Leamon Bryant (born August 30, 1953) is an American mathematician and Phillip Griffiths Professor of Mathematics at Duke University. He specializes in differential geometry. He served as the director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) from 2007 to 2013. He is known for his work in exterior differential systems, special holonomy, and Finsler geometry. Bryant surfaces, surfaces of unit constant mean curvature in hyperbolic space, are named after him. The Bryant soliton is also named after him.
In 2013 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He served as the president of the American Mathematical Society from February 1, 2015 until January 31, 2017.
Selected publications
- editor with David Bao, S. S. Chern, Zhongmin Shen: A sampler of Riemann-Finsler Geometry, Cambridge University Press 2004
- with Robert Brown Gardner, S. S. Chern, H. L. Goldschmidt, Phillip Griffiths: Exterior Differential Systems, MSRI Publ. 18, Springer Verlag 1991
- with Phillip Griffiths, Dan Grossmann: Exterior Differential Systems and Euler-Lagrange Partial Differential Equations, Chicago Lectures in Mathematics, University of Chicago Press 2003
- editor with Victor Guillemin, Sigurdur Helgason, R. O. Wells: Integral Geometry, Contemporary Mathematics 63, AMS 1987
- Metrics with exceptional holonomy, Annals of Mathematics, vol. 126, 1987, pp. 525–567
- An introduction to Lie groups and symplectic geometry, in Geometry and quantum field theory, IAS/Park City Math. Series 1, American Mathematical Society 1995, pp. 5–181
- with Lucas Hsu, Phillip Griffiths: Hyperbolic exterior differential systems and their conservation laws, Parts 1,2, Selecta Mathematica, 1, 1995, 21-112, 265-323
- with Griffiths: Characteristic Cohomology of Differential Systems, Parts 1,2, Journal of the AMS, vol. 8, 1995, pp. 507–596, Duke Math. J., vol. 78, 1995, pp. 531–676
- with Hsu, Griffiths: Toward a Geometry of Differential Equations, in: Geometry, Topology & Physics, Conf. Proc. Lecture Notes Geom. Topology, VI, International Press, Cambridge, MA, 1995, pp. 1–76
Bryant and David Morrison are the editors of vol. 4 of the Selected Works of Phillip Griffiths.