Yitang Zhang

Yitang Zhang is a mathematician who emerged from relative obscurity with a landmark achievement in analytic number theory: the so-called bounded prime gap, which essentially establishes that the difference in spacing between two consecutive prime numbers is, infinitely often, bounded by a fixed number. Yitang Zhang received a B.S. (1982) and M.S. (1984) from Peking University and a Ph.D. (1991) from Purdue University. Recently named a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of New Hampshire, he worked in a wide array of positions, including as an accountant and a delivery worker, before joining the faculty of the University of New Hampshire as a lecturer in 1999.