Craig Tracy stands outside on a cloudy day, on the top of a grassy hill. His hand is outstretched to a large rough boulder. An island floats in the ocean in the distance.
Craig Tracy at the Faroe Islands, 2016

For Craig Tracy's Retirement

  • by Barry McCoy, Distinguished Professor, Stony Brook University

Craig was my first graduate student. He has had an extremely productive and distinguished career. Over the decades since I first met Craig we have shared many adventures together. It is hard to believe that he is retiring.

A young Craig Tracy carries baby Ingrid in a baby backpack. They are outside, the trees bare of leaves in the background.
Craig Tracy and baby Ingrid, 1972

Craig walked into my life 50 years ago in the early 1970’s when T.T. Wu and I were working on Ising model correlations and Painleve equations. In the 4 years from 1973 to 1977 Craig and I wrote 8 papers together which brought Painleve functions and equations into physics in totally unexpected ways. Craig was a pioneer in these discoveries and I remember these times with great fondness.

The discoveries of these early days have had a significant impact on both mathematics and physics and Craig has been a driving force in these developments. Craig turned his attention from statistical mechanics to random matrix theory and building on his previous discoveries on Painleve three functions he and Harold Widom discovered what have become known as the famous Tracy-Widom distribution functions which express probability distributions of the eigenvalues of random matrices in terms of Painleve functions. It is completely fair to say that Craig’s work has revolutionized the study and applications of random matrix theory.

Craig has great mathematical power and deep physical insight. His work is a model of what can be achieved when mathematics and physics are combined for the solution of physical problems.

It has been an enormous pleasure to have worked with Craig. I will always treasure our collaboration.

23 people stand lined up outside the Math Sciences Building conference room, smiling.
Participants from the Craig Tracy Workshop, 2021. Craig stands just right of center, in a long brown suede coat and sunglasses.

A New Research Prize in honor of Craig Tracy

To honor Professor Emeritus Craig A. Tracy, the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Davis announces the creation of the Craig A. Tracy Research Prize to be awarded annually for research by one of its postdoctoral researchers or Krener Assistant Professors (KAPs). This fund is building toward endowment. Help us reach the $50,000 endowment level! If we are unable to reach endowment level, your gifts will be used for the immediate research needs of our KAPs and postdocs.

Learn how you can contribute to Craig A. Tracy’s annual Research Prize program.

Primary Category

Life After Davis

Secondary Categories

Mathematics Research

Tags

2021 emeriti Craig Tracy retirement mathematical physics probability random matrix theory