Horng-Tzer Yau (姚鴻澤) is a Taiwanese-American mathematician. Born 1959 in Taiwan, he has a B.Sc. in 1981 from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in 1987 from Princeton University. He joined the faculty of NYU in 1988, and became a full professor at its Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in 1994. He moved to Stanford in 2003, and then to Harvard University in 2005. He has also been a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., in 1987-88, 1991-92, and 2003.
According to William C. Kirby, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, "Professor Yau is a leader in the fields of mathematical physics, ... who has introduced important tools and concepts to study probability, stochastic processes, nonequilibrium statistical physics, and quantum dynamics."[1]