Yong-Geun Oh

Yong-Geun Oh
Name	Yong-Geun Oh
Nationality	South Korea
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley; Pohang University of Science and Technology; Korea Institute for Advanced Study
Alma mater	Seoul National University; University of California, Berkeley
Doctoral advisor	Kenji Fukaya
Known for	Symplectic topology; Floer homology; Lagrangian intersection theory
Awards	Ho-Am Prize in Science; Sloan Research Fellowship

Yong-Geun Oh is a South Korean mathematician noted for foundational work in symplectic topology, Floer homology, and Lagrangian submanifold theory. He has held faculty positions at major research institutions and contributed to developments relating to the Arnold conjecture, Calabi conjecture, and analytical foundations of pseudo-holomorphic curves. His work has influenced research directions in differential geometry, algebraic topology, and mathematical physics.

Early life and education

Oh was born in South Korea and received his undergraduate degree from Seoul National University before pursuing graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley he completed a Ph.D. under the supervision of Kenji Fukaya, working on problems connecting symplectic geometry and analytical methods developed by Mikhail Gromov and Andreas Floer. During his formative years he interacted with researchers at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics.

Academic career

Oh began his research career with postdoctoral and faculty appointments that connected East Asian and North American mathematical communities, including positions at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), the Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS), and visiting roles at University of California, Berkeley. He has collaborated with scholars from Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, ETH Zurich, University of Tokyo, and the École Normale Supérieure. He served on editorial boards for journals associated with the American Mathematical Society, the London Mathematical Society, and the Mathematical Society of Japan. Oh organized conferences at venues such as the International Congress of Mathematicians, the Symposium in Pure Mathematics, and workshops at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

Research contributions

Oh developed analytical and topological tools central to modern symplectic topology and Hamiltonian dynamics. He produced rigorous foundations for variants of Floer homology used to address the Arnold conjecture and to study intersections of Lagrangian submanifolds in Calabi–Yau and monotone symplectic manifolds. His contributions include work on spectral invariants related to Hofer geometry and constructions that connect Morse theory with pseudo-holomorphic curve techniques introduced by Gromov and Floer. Oh advanced the study of the Fukaya category appearing in homological mirror symmetry conjectures of Maxim Kontsevich and influenced applications to quantum cohomology and enumerative predictions made using mirror symmetry. He collaborated with researchers exploring compactness and transversality issues in moduli spaces that were central to results by Dusa McDuff, Dietmar Salamon, Kenji Fukaya, Paul Seidel, and Mohammed Abouzaid. His analyses of boundary value problems for Cauchy–Riemann type operators connected to work by Gromov, Hermann Hofer, and Yasha Eliashberg.

Selected publications

Oh authored monographs and influential papers published in venues associated with the American Mathematical Society, the Journal of Differential Geometry, and the Annals of Mathematics. Representative works include rigorous treatments of Lagrangian intersection Floer theory, spectral invariants, and compactness theorems for pseudo-holomorphic curves. He has written expository articles for proceedings of meetings hosted by the International Mathematical Union, the Korean Mathematical Society, and the Seoul National University mathematical seminar series. Collaborations produced papers with figures such as Kenji Fukaya, Paul Seidel, Dusa McDuff, and Richard Siefring.

Awards and honors

Oh's research has been recognized with prizes and fellowships including the Ho-Am Prize in Science and a Sloan Research Fellowship. He received invitations to speak at the International Congress of Mathematicians and plenary invitations to symposia organized by the Mathematical Society of Japan and the Korean Mathematical Society. He has been awarded research grants from national funding agencies in South Korea and international research fellowships affiliated with the Simons Foundation and the National Science Foundation.

Teaching and mentorship

Oh supervised doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers who have taken positions at institutions such as Princeton University, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, KAIST, Yonsei University, and POSTECH. He taught graduate courses on symplectic topology, Hamiltonian dynamics, and analysis of partial differential equations in geometry, contributing to curriculum development at Seoul National University and POSTECH. His mentorship fostered collaborations that bridged research groups at the Mathematics Institute at the University of Oxford, the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques, and the Institute for Advanced Study.

Category:South Korean mathematicians Category:Symplectic geometers