PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Jacob Tsimerman

Also known as Yakov Tsimerman, Яков Цимерман

Jacob Tsimerman is a University of Toronto mathematician who turned to AI safety after winning the 2026 Fields Medal. A two-time gold medallist at the International Mathematical Olympiad, he finished a mathematics degree at U of T in 2006 and a Princeton PhD advised by Peter Sarnak in 2011. In 2021, he, Jonathan Pila and Ananth Shankar published a proof of the André–Oort conjecture, and in 2025 he co-wrote "A Taxonomy of Omnicidal Futures Involving Artificial Intelligence" with Andrew Critch. After receiving the Fields Medal in July 2026, he announced plans to work on AI safety at OpenAI. Since September 2026, he is the scientific director of the Mathematical AI Safety Institute (MAISI), an independent non-profit developing mathematical foundations for the safety of powerful AI systems.

Timeline

  1. 1988–2006

    Olympiad golds and a Toronto degree

    He is born in Kazan, Soviet Union, in 1988; his family moves to Israel in 1990 and to Canada in 1996. At University of Toronto Schools, he wins two International Mathematical Olympiad gold medals, including a perfect score in 2004. He starts a mathematics degree at U of T at 16 and graduates in 2006.

  2. 2011

    A Princeton PhD with Peter Sarnak

    He earns a PhD at Princeton in 2011 under number theorist Peter Sarnak; there he finds the André–Oort conjecture, which he calls his "mathematical home." He then becomes a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows.

  3. 2014–2019

    Professor at Toronto

    In 2014, he receives a Sloan Fellowship and joins the Department of Mathematics at the University of Toronto as an assistant professor; he later becomes the youngest person appointed full professor in the department. He wins the SASTRA Ramanujan Prize in 2015 and the Coxeter–James Prize in 2019.

  4. 2021

    Proving the André–Oort conjecture

    In 2021, he, Jonathan Pila and Ananth Shankar publish "Canonical Heights on Shimura Varieties and the André-Oort Conjecture," a proof of the conjecture in full generality. The conjecture concerns special points inside geometric objects called Shimura varieties.

  5. 2022–2025

    New Horizons and the Royal Society

    He wins the 2022 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize for work in analytic number theory and arithmetic geometry, including breakthroughs on the André-Oort and Griffiths conjectures. The Ostrowski Prize follows in 2023, and in 2025 he is elected a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Royal Society of Canada.

  6. 2025–2026

    A taxonomy of omnicidal futures

    In 2025, he and Andrew Critch write "A Taxonomy of Omnicidal Futures Involving Artificial Intelligence," a report on scenarios in which AI leads to the deaths of all or almost all humans, meant to support preventive measures against catastrophic AI risks. From 2025 to 2026, he is a distinguished visiting professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

  7. July 2026

    A Fields Medal

    In July 2026, he accepts the Fields Medal at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia for recasting o-minimality as a method of arithmetic and complex algebraic geometry and for his role in proving conjectures including Griffiths' conjecture and the André-Oort conjecture for Siegel modular varieties. He is the first scholar based at a Canadian institution to receive the medal. At a press conference after the award, he announces plans to leave the university for San Francisco to work on AI safety at OpenAI.

  8. Since September 2026

    Scientific director of MAISI

    In September 2026, he announces that he is co-founding the Mathematical AI Safety Institute (MAISI), an independent non-profit developing mathematical foundations for the safety of powerful AI systems, and he serves as its scientific director. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the institute plans its first full research semester for January 2027. He is also a professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Jacob Tsimerman yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Jacob Tsimerman - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. ‘Nobel Prize of mathematics’: U of T mathematician Jacob Tsimerman awarded prestigious Fields Medal utoronto.ca. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Mathematical AI Safety Institute maisi.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. Canonical Heights on Shimura Varieties and the André-Oort Conjecture arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Locked in an escape room with mathematician Jacob Tsimerman begiant.ca. Checked 19 October 2026.
  6. Jacob Tsimerman – 2022 New Horizons in Mathematics Prize breakthroughprize.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  7. Exceptional scientists elected as Fellows of the Royal Society royalsociety.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  8. A Taxonomy of Omnicidal Futures Involving Artificial Intelligence arxiv.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  9. Fields Medals 2026 | International Mathematical Union (IMU) mathunion.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  10. Why Canada’s greatest math genius is joining OpenAI begiant.ca. Checked 19 October 2026.
  11. U of T professor Jacob Tsimerman, who won math’s highest prize, to join OpenAI betakit.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  12. Canada’s star mathematician races to help establish safe superintelligence begiant.ca. Checked 19 October 2026.
  13. Jacob Tsimerman math.utoronto.ca. Checked 19 October 2026.