Kiyosi Itô Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth and Family

Kiyosi Itô (伊藤 清, Itō Kiyoshi, Japanese pronunciation: [itoː kiꜜjoɕi], September 7, 1915 – 10 November 2008) was a Japanese mathematician who made fundamental contributions to probability theory, in particular, the theory of stochastic processes. He invented the concept of stochastic integral and stochastic differential equation, and is known as the founder of so-called Itô calculus.

In October 2008, Itô was honored with Japan’s Order of Culture, and an awards ceremony for the Order of Culture was held at the Imperial Palace.

He died on November 10, 2008 in Kyoto, Japan at age 93.

Itô was awarded the inaugural Gauss Prize in 2006 by the International Mathematical Union for his lifetime achievements. As he was unable to travel to Madrid, his youngest daughter, Junko Itô received the Gauss Prize from the King of Spain on his behalf. Later, International Mathematics Union (IMU) President Sir John Ball personally presented the medal to Itô at a special ceremony held in Kyoto.

In 1952, he became a Professor at the University of Kyoto to which he remained affiliated until his retirement in 1979. Starting in the 1950s, Itô spent long periods of time outside Japan, at Cornell, Stanford, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and Aarhus University in Denmark.

Itô was born in Hokusei-cho in Mie Prefecture on the main island of Honshū. He graduated with a B.S. (1938) and a Ph.D (1945) in Mathematics from the University of Tokyo. Between 1938 and 1945, Itô worked for the Japanese National Statistical Bureau, where he published two of his seminal works on probability and stochastic processes, including a series of articles in which he defined the stochastic integral and laid the foundations of the Itō calculus. After that he continued to develop his ideas on stochastic analysis with many important papers on the topic.