Nigel Higson is Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics at the Pennsylvania State University.

Professor Higson's research specialty is operator algebra theory, a subject with roots in the mathematical foundations of quantum theory and in Fourier analysis. These two antecedents have come to be synthesized in a remarkable way, with quite powerful consequences in topology and geometry. Professor Higson's recent work has focussed on the Baum-Connes conjecture, a broad program that connects operator algebra theory to problems in differential topology, Riemannian geometry, and various areas of representation theory. Along with Paul Baum and Alain Connes, Higson is responsible for the current form of the conjecture.

Professor Higson's research and teaching accomplishments have been regularly recognized, both nationally and internationally. He was awarded a Sloan Fellowship and won Canada's Aisenstadt Medal and its Coxeter-James and Halperin Prizes, all of which recognize young mathematicians who have made outstanding contributions to mathematical research. He has delivered plenary addresses to the American, Australian and Canadian Mathematical Societies, and in 1998 he delivered an invited lecture to the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin. He was a Clay Mathematics Institute Prize Fellow in 1999 and in 2000 was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. At Penn State he has received the C. I. Noll and Atherton Awards for excellence in teaching.

Higson earned three degrees at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia - a bachelor of arts in 1982, master of science in 1983 and doctoral degree in 1986. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Dalhousie in1986. From 1986 to 1990, Higson was an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the Penn State faculty as an assistant professor in 1986. He was promoted to associate professor in 1990 and professor in 1994. He was named Distinguished Professor of Mathematics in 2000 and in 2006 he was named Evan Pugh Professor of Mathematics. Professor Higson has held visiting appointments at several universities in North America and Europe, including the Stanislaw Ulam professorship at the University of Colorado in 1996. He served as head of the Penn State Department of Mathematics from 2003 to 2006.