Mathematical Genealogy
Advisor-student lineage of the Top 100
Every PhD mathematician has an advisor, and every advisor has an advisor. The Mathematics Genealogy Project catalogs this lineage globally. We use it to identify researchers who are not in the algorithmic Top 100 by publication count but who are tightly connected to the Top 100 through advisor-student relationships.
How the genealogy graph is built
For each Top 100 researcher we look up their MGP record and pull their full advisor and descendant tree. The union of these trees forms a single graph where:
- Nodes are individual mathematicians (each with a unique MGP id).
- Edges are advisor-student relationships.
- The Top 100 are the canonical seeds.
- Everyone else in the graph is an outsider.
Outsiders are ranked by their advisor-student connectivity to the canonical set. The six closest, recomputed against the current Top 100, are shown below.
Close relations
These six researchers are not in the Top 100 by publication signal, but the genealogy network puts them in the immediate orbit of multiple canonical Top 100 figures. Click any name for a detail page.
| Rank | Quartile | Proximity | Continent | Name | Year | University |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Q1 | 4.66 | E | Damaris Schindler | 2013 | University of Bristol |
| 2 | Q1 | 3.45 | E | Sam Chow | 2016 | University of Bristol |
| 3 | Q2 | 3.42 | E | Olli Järviniemi | 2023 | Turun yliopisto |
| 4 | Q2 | 3.26 | N | Peter Sarnak | 1980 | Stanford University |
| 5 | Q3 | 3.24 | E | Sofia Lindqvist | 2019 | University of Oxford |
| 6 | Q4 | 3.24 | E | Sean Prendiville | 2012 | University of Bristol |
Notes on these six
- Damaris Schindler (University of Bristol, 2013): A number theorist working on the circle method and Diophantine problems in the Bristol-Göttingen analytic tradition.
- Sam Chow (University of Bristol, 2016): A British number theorist working on the Waring problem, Diophantine approximation, and additive combinatorics, connected to the Bristol circle-method lineage that underlies much of the Top 100..
- Olli Järviniemi (Turun yliopisto, 2023): A young Finnish number theorist with a recent PhD.
- Peter Sarnak (Stanford University, 1980): A leading analytic number theorist at Princeton and the Institute for Advanced Study; his advisor-student network connects broadly to the Top 100..
- Sofia Lindqvist (University of Oxford, 2019): A number theorist working on additive combinatorics and the distribution of primes, reaching the Top 100 through the Oxford additive-combinatorics lineage..
- Sean Prendiville (University of Bristol, 2012): A British number theorist working on additive combinatorics and arithmetic Ramsey theory (Roth-type theorems), adjacent to the Top 100 through shared advisors in the Bristol and Oxford schools..