Richard Peter Stanley (born June 23, 1944) is an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an Arts and Sciences Distinguished Scholar at the University of Miami.

[4][5] He is also the author of Combinatorics and Commutative Algebra (1983) and well over 200 research articles in mathematics.

He has served as thesis advisor to 60 doctoral students, many of whom have had distinguished careers in combinatorial research.

[2] Donald Knuth named Stanley as one of his combinatorial heroes in a 2023 interview.

[6] Stanley's distinctions include membership in the National Academy of Sciences (elected in 1995), the 2001 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition,[7] the 2003 Schock Prize,[3] a plenary lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians (in Madrid, Spain),[8] and election in 2012 as a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.