About René Thom
René Frédéric Thom (French: [ʁəne tɔm]; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician, who received the Fields Medal in 1958. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became world-famous among the wider academic community and the educated general public for one aspect of this latter interest, his work as the founder of catastrophe theory (later developed by Christopher Zeeman). He was awarded the Brouwer Medal in 1970, the Grand Prix Scientifique de la Ville de Paris in 1974, and the John von Neumann Lecture Prize in 1976. He became the first president, together with Louis Néel, of the newly established Fondation Louis-de-Broglie In 1973 and was elected Member of the Académie des Sciences of Paris in 1976.
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