Brian White (mathematician)

Brian White is an American mathematician specializing in geometric analysis, particularly minimal surfaces and related topics. He is a professor of mathematics at Stanford University.

White's research focuses on the regularity theory of minimal surfaces, including their singularities and the behavior of their tangent cones. He has made significant contributions to understanding the structure and properties of these surfaces in various dimensions and settings. His work often involves developing new techniques and tools for analyzing geometric variational problems.

Some of his notable achievements include:

• Regularity results for minimal surfaces: White has proven important theorems concerning the regularity of minimal surfaces near their singular points. These results provide crucial information about the local structure of these surfaces.
• Stratification theorems: He has established stratification theorems that describe the decomposition of the singular set of a minimal surface into lower-dimensional manifolds.
• The multiplicity one conjecture: White resolved a long-standing conjecture regarding the density of minimal surfaces at singular points, demonstrating that the density is always an integer multiple of one.
• Applications to other geometric variational problems: His methods and insights have found applications in other areas of geometric analysis, such as the study of harmonic maps and geodesics.

White has received several awards and recognitions for his work, including being an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM). His research is supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other funding agencies. He is also known for his mentoring of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.