Jerry Kazdan

Jerry Lawrence Kazdan (born 31 October 1937 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American mathematician noted for his work in differential geometry and the study of partial differential equations.

His contributions include the Berger–Kazdan comparison theorem, which was a key step in the proof of the Blaschke conjecture and the classification of Wiedersehen manifolds.

His best-known work, done in collaboration with Frank Warner, dealt with the problem of prescribing the scalar curvature of a Riemannian metric.

He obtained his PhD in 1963 from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University; his thesis was entitled A Boundary Value Problem Arising in the Theory of Univalent Functions and was supervised by Paul Garabedian.

[2] In 1999 he received the Lester Randolph Ford Award for his expository article Solving equations, an elegant legacy.