Craig Tracy

Craig A. Tracy was Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Davis. He received a B.S. in Physics from the University of Missouri, Columbia, in 1967 and a Ph.D. in Physics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1973, with a thesis advised by Barry M. McCoy. Following postdoctoral positions as Research Associate at the University of Rochester (1973–1975) and the Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook (1975–1978), he joined Dartmouth College as Assistant Professor in 1978, advancing to Associate Professor in 1983. In 1984, he moved to the University of California, Davis, as Professor of Mathematics, where he served as Chair of the Department from 1994 to 1998, Acting Director of the Institute of Theoretical Dynamics in 1989, 1992, and 2001–2002, and was appointed Distinguished Professor in 2003, becoming Emeritus in 2021. He held distinguished visiting positions, including Research Professor at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences (RIMS), Kyoto University, in 1991, Aisenstadt Chair at the Centre de Recherches Mathématiques in Montréal (2008–2009), and KITP Simons Distinguished Visiting Scientist at UC Santa Barbara in 2016.

Tracy's research focused on statistical physics, integrable systems, and probability theory, resulting in over 100 publications and continuous NSF support from 1980 to 2023. Notable early work with Barry M. McCoy includes spin-spin correlation functions for the two-dimensional Ising model (Phys. Rev. B 13, 1976). His collaboration with Harold Widom advanced random matrix theory, introducing the Tracy-Widom distribution through papers such as "Level-spacing distributions and the Airy kernel" (Commun. Math. Phys. 159, 1994; 2485 citations), "Fredholm determinants, differential equations and matrix models" (Commun. Math. Phys. 163, 1994), and "On orthogonal and symplectic matrix ensembles" (Commun. Math. Phys. 177, 1996). These contributions, with applications from neutron scattering to Riemann zeta zeros, transformed the field. Tracy received the SIAM George Pólya Prize (2002, with Widom), Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics (2007, with Widom), and AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Seminal Contribution to Research (2020, with Widom). He was elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), SIAM (2011), and AMS (2013). Editorial roles included Associate Editor for The Annals of Probability (2006–2011), The Annals of Statistics (2007–2015), and Journal of Statistical Physics (2011–2018).

Professional Email: tracy@math.ucdavis.edu