Dr. Arlie Petters , Mathematician

"Science, Entrepreneurship, and Financial Success"

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Dr. Arlie O. Petters is professor of mathematics, physics, and business administration at Duke University. He was recruited to Duke in 1998 from Princeton where he was an assistant professor of mathematics for five years. He also was an Instructor of pure mathematics at MIT from 1991 to 1993. Petters holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from MIT (1991) with specialization in mathematical physics. His academic studies began at Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he was part of an accelerated B.A./M.A. program for exceptional undergraduates. A 1986 graduate of Hunter, Petters was the recipient of many awards in mathematics and physics. In 1999, he was being inducted into the Hunter College Hall of Fame.

Petters’s research is on gravitational lensing, which deals with how light is affected by the warping of space and time. He developed the mathematical theory of gravitational lensing, bringing powerful methods from pure mathematics to bear on astronomy. Petters also pioneered new applications of gravitational lensing in physics, predicting effects of space/time around black holes and testing gravitational theories like Einstein’s general relativity and hyperspace-gravity models. He has written three books and is the leading author of Singularity Theory and Gravitational Lensing, the first book to put weak deflection gravitational lensing on a rigorous mathematical foundation. Petters is the recipient of numerous awards and honors for his innovative research, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, an NSF Career Grant Award, and the first Blackwell-Tapia Prize in Mathematical Science.

His career at Duke has been punctuated by many firsts as an African American, including the first to be tenured in the Department of Mathematics, the first to hold a joint appointment with mathematics and physics, and the first to be elected to Duke’s prestigious Bass Society of Fellows. Petters gives back to the community by helping and mentoring students and faculty, for which he has received several community service awards.

A native of Belize, he founded the Petters Research Institute in 2005 as a way of giving back to the country of his birth. The institute is a center of excellence in mathematics, science, and technology, fostering national development through entrepreneurship in these fields. His vision for the country is to create a digital Belize fueled by a high-technology economy.

One of two recipients selected in 2006 by the National Academy of Sciences to be part of a Portrait Collection of Outstanding African Americans in Science, Engineering, and Medicine, his likeness is on permanent display at the National Academies Keck Center in Washington, D.C.