René Thom

René Frédéric Thom (French: [ʁəne tɔm]; 2 September 1923 – 25 October 2002) was a French mathematician. He made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what would be called singularity theory; he became world-famous among the wider academic community and the educated general public for one aspect of this latter interest, his work as founder of catastrophe theory (later developed by Erik Christopher Zeeman). He received the Fields Medal in 1958.