Jean-Louis Verdier

Jean-Louis Verdier (French: [vɛʁdje]; 2 February 1935 – 25 August 1989) was a French mathematician known for his important work in advanced mathematical areas. He studied under the famous mathematician Alexander Grothendieck and worked on topics like derived categories and Verdier duality.

Verdier was a student at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure in Paris and later became a teacher there and a Professor at the University of Paris VII. He was also part of the important math group called Bourbaki and served as president of the Société Mathématique de France in 1984.

In 1976, Verdier developed a new idea to help describe complex shapes called stratified sets. His work connected to earlier ideas by the mathematician Tzee-Char Kuo and later helped others understand the Whitney conditions for special types of sets. Verdier also worked on integrable systems, contributing to many areas of modern mathematics.