Rate My Professor Lin Fanghua

Fang-Hua Lin is the Silver Professor of Mathematics at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, where he has been a faculty member since 1985. Initially serving as an Instructor from 1985 to 1987, he returned as Professor in 1989 following a brief tenure as Professor at the University of Chicago from 1988 to 1989, and was appointed Silver Professor in 2002. He also serves as Affiliated Professor of Mathematics at NYU Shanghai, contributing in various capacities including as founding co-director of the NYU-ECNU Institute of Mathematical Sciences since 2012. Lin earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Zhejiang University, China, in 1981, and his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Minnesota in 1985. His research centers on nonlinear partial differential equations, geometric measure theory, and geometric and applied analysis, with recent efforts focused on geometric variational problems, theories of liquid crystals, homogenization, and the analysis of classical and complex fluids including liquid crystal flows and viscoelastic fluids.

Lin's prolific scholarship comprises over 200 original research articles published in leading journals such as Annals of Mathematics, Inventiones Mathematicae, Journal of the American Mathematical Society, and Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics. He has co-authored influential books including Geometric Measure Theory: An Introduction (2002, with Xiaoping Yang), The Analysis of Harmonic Maps and Their Heat Flows (2008, with Changyou Wang), and Elliptic Partial Differential Equations (2011, with Qing Han). Prominent publications include "Elliptic partial differential equations" (2011), "Nonparabolic dissipative systems modeling the flow of liquid crystals" (1995), "On hydrodynamics of viscoelastic fluids" (2005), and recent contributions such as "Matrix-valued Allen-Cahn equation and the Keller-Rubinstein-Sternberg problem" (Invent. Math., 2023), "Isotropic-nematic phase transition and liquid crystal droplets" (Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 2023), and "Critical sets of solutions of elliptic equations in periodic homogenization" (Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 2024). His work has profoundly influenced the fields of partial differential equations and applied analysis, evidenced by over 19,000 citations. Among his honors are the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and Presidential Young Investigator Award (1989), Outstanding Young Researcher Award from NSF-China (1998), Chang Jiang Chair Professorship (1999), American Mathematical Society Bocher Prize (2002), S.S. Chern Prize at ICCM (2004), fellowships of the AMS, SIAM, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and election to the National Academy of Sciences (2025).