Percy Alec Deift (born September 10, 1945)[1] is a mathematician known for his work on spectral theory, integrable systems, random matrix theory and Riemann–Hilbert problems.
Deift was born in Durban, South Africa, where he obtained degrees in chemical engineering, physics, and mathematics, and received a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University in 1977.
[2] He is a Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University.
[11] Deift gave the Gibbs Lecture at the Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in 2009.
[12] Along with Michael Aizenman and Giovanni Gallavotti, he won the Henri Poincare Prize in 2018.