Maurizio Cornalba

Maurizio Cornalba was born in Pavia in 1947 and established a career centered on algebraic geometry. His mathematical contributions span decades of research into the topology of moduli spaces and the geometric properties of algebraic curves, cementing his role within the Italian academic community and influencing the broader international mathematical landscape through extensive teaching and collaborative editorial work.

Academic Formation

Cornalba completed undergraduate studies at the University of Pisa in 1969. He then pursued graduate work at the Scuola Normale Superiore, attending the Classe di Scienze from 1965 to 1969 and again from 1969 to 1971. His early professional development included a postdoctoral position at Princeton University between 1970 and 1971, followed by a tenure as an assistant professor at the University of Pisa from 1971 to 1976.

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Research and Professional Tenure

In 1976, Cornalba accepted a position as a full professor at the University of Pavia, where he remained until his retirement in 2017 as professor emeritus. Throughout his career, he held numerous visiting roles, including periods at Princeton University, Harvard University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Brown University. He also spent time as a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study, the Institut Henri Poincaré, and the University of Amsterdam.

Contributions and Publications

His scholarly output includes significant co-authored texts such as Geometry of Algebraic Curves and Special Divisors on Algebraic Curves. He served as an editor for collections including Lectures on Riemann Surfaces and Problems in the Theory of Surfaces and Their Classification. Furthermore, he contributed to the editorial compilation of the collected works of Guido Castelnuovo and Phillip Griffiths, published by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei and the American Mathematical Society respectively.

Professional Recognition

The mathematical community recognized his work with the Bartolozzi Prize in 1975 and the Mathematical Prize of the Italian Academy of Sciences in 2002. In 1998, he served as an invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin, presenting on the cohomology of moduli spaces of stable curves. He holds memberships in the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, the Academy of Sciences of Turin, and the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere.