Carsten Thomassen is professor of mathematics at DTU Compute. His field of research is combinatorics, with an emphasis on graph theory, and he is not only one of the world's leading graph theorists, but also a world-class mathematician seen across disciplines, with over 240 publications. He has been included in the annual ISI list of the worlds 250 most cited mathematicians several times, and his work has had a great impact also in computer science. His applications of graph theory to problems in random walks, surfaces, curves, matrices, and algorithms are astonishing and original, and throughout his career he has solved several so-called "open problems" – problems that other mathematicians have had to give up on over many years. Now he receives one of the most prestigious acknowledgements in Danish research, the Ole Rømer Medal. The medal was last awarded in 2001 to the Harvard based Danish physicist Lene Hau, and in 1976 it went to Nobel Laureates Aage Bohr and Ben Mottelson. In total, it has only been awarded to 10 people since it was instituted in 1944.
A graph is the mathematical abstraction for networks, such as road networks, power grids, data networks such as the Internet, and disease spread models. In computer science, graphs play a fundamental role, and graph theory has been one of the fastest growing branches of mathematics in the 20th century.
Head of Section, Professor Philip Bille says: "In the Section of Algorithms, Logic and Graphs, we consider it a privilege to have Carsten Thomassen in our midst – he has the great mathematical overview and the originality that is so important for achieving new results in the area between mathematics and IT. And he's a great teacher."
Over the years, Thomassen has received several national and international acknowledgements, and he has been distinguished visiting professor around the world, including Rothschild Professor at the Isaac Newton Institute at Cambridge University in 2008. He is also prolific as editor of international journals, e.g., he is the main editor of the international Journal of Graph Theory since 1989.
Carsten Thomassen himself says: "Mathematics is a wonderful subject that continues to develop – it is fascinating to see how mathematics on the one hand is fundamental to many applied disciplines and on the other hand contains a wealth of beautiful problems that are interesting in themselves."
