Ken Ribet

Kenneth Alan Ribet, born on June 28, 1948, is an American mathematician who works in the areas of algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry. He is well known for two important ideas called the Herbrand–Ribet theorem and Ribet's theorem. These ideas helped mathematicians show that a famous old math problem, called Fermat's Last Theorem, was true. Ribet also served as President of the American Mathematical Society from 2017 to 2019. Today, he is a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Early life and education

Kenneth Ribet was born on June 28, 1948, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents were David Ribet and Pearl Ribet. When he was a student at Far Rockaway High School, he joined a math team, though he first studied chemistry.

Ribet got his bachelor's and master's degrees from Brown University in 1969. He finished his Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1973, working with John Tate.

Career

After finishing his studies, Ken Ribet taught at Princeton University for three years and then spent two years researching in Paris. In 1978, he joined the University of California, Berkeley, where he helped guide students and the school's math programs in many ways.

Ribet has worked with many math journals and book publishers, such as the Cambridge University Press and Springer. He also represented the United States in international math groups and led math discussions at the National Academy of Sciences. He was the President of the American Mathematical Society from February 1, 2017, to January 31, 2019.

Research

Further information: Ribet's theorem

Ken Ribet is a mathematician who works with numbers and shapes in very special ways. His work helped explain important links between different areas of math, like patterns in numbers and special curves.

Ribet’s discoveries were very important for solving a famous old math problem called Fermat’s Last Theorem. In 1986, he showed that a guess made by another mathematician would lead to solving the theorem. He also proved other important math results that connect to this famous problem.

Awards and honors

Ken Ribet has received many awards for his work. In 1989, he shared the Fermat Prize with Abbas Bahri. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2000. In 2012, he became a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. Ribet received the Brouwer Medal in 2017, and in 2025, he was awarded the AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research.

He was also honored as a vigneron d'honneur by the Jurade de Saint-Émilion in 1988 and received an honorary doctorate from Brown University in 1998.

Personal life

Ken Ribet is married to a statistician named Lisa Goldberg.