Born in Bâges (Pyrénées Orientales) on September 15 1926. Son of Jean Serre and Adèle Serre (née Diet), pharmacists.
Training and professional career
- 1932-1937 : Student at École de Vauvert
- 1937-1945 : Student at Lycée de Nîmes
- 1944 : Bachelor of Science and Letters
- 1945-1948 : Student at the École normale supérieure
- 1948 : Agrégé in mathematics
- 1948-1953 : Attaché, then research fellow at C.N.R.S.
- 1951 : Doctor of Science
- 1953-1954 : Senior researcher at C.N.R.S.
- 1954 : Lecturer at the Nancy Faculty of Science
- 1955 : Lecturer in the Peccot lecture series at the Collège de France
- 1956-1994 : Professor at the Collège de France, Chair of Algebra and Geometry
Awards and honors
- Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor
- Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit
- 1954 : Fields Medal (International Congress of Mathematicians)
- 1955 : Peccot-Vimont Prize (Collège de France)
- 1957 : Francœur Prize (Académie des Sciences)
- 1970 : Gaston Julia Prize
- 1971 : Émile Picard Medal (Académie des Sciences)
- 1973 : Honorary member of the London Mathematical Society
- 1973 : Member of the Académie des Sciences de Paris (correspondent)
- 1977 : Member of the Académie des Sciences de Paris (titular)
- 1985 : Balzan Prize
- 1987 : Médaille d'or du C.N.R.S.
- 1995 : Steele Prize (Amer. Math. Soc.)
- 2000 : Wolf Prize (Israel)
- 2003 : Abel Prize (Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters)
- 2013 : ICCM International Cooperation Award (Taipei)
- Honorary doctorate from the Universities of Cambridge (1978), Stockholm (1980), Glasgow (1983), Athens (1996), Harvard (1998), Durham (2000), London (2001), Oslo (2002), Oxford (2003), Bucharest (2004), Barcelona (2004), Madrid (2006), McGill (2008), Tsinghua (2017)
- Foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston (1960), the Royal Society, London (1974), the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (1978), the US National Academy of Sciences (1979), the Swedish Academy of Sciences (1981), american Philosophical Society (1998), Russian Academy of Sciences (2003), Norwegian Academy of Letters and Sciences (2009), Academia sinica, Taiwan (2010) and Turin Academy of Sciences (2010)