Allen Edward Hatcher is an American topologist and also a noted author. His book Algebraic Topology (http://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/AT/ATpage.html) (ISBN 052179160X and ISBN 0521795400) is oft_praised and the first part of a series.

After receiving his Ph.D. under the advisorship of Hans Samelson (himself a student of Heinz Hopf) at Stanford University in 1971, Hatcher went on to become a professor, advising several students including Ulrich Oertel and Kiyoshi Igusa.

His contributions include a proof of the Smale conjecture and important results in the theory of surfaces and 3-manifolds.

He has been a professor at Cornell University since 1985. Previously he was at UCLA.

External links

• Hatcher's official page (http://www.math.cornell.edu/People/Faculty/hatcher.html)
• Hatcher's personal homepage (http://www.math.cornell.edu/~hatcher/)