An introduction to Riemann-Finsler Geometry

David Bao is Professor of Mathematics and of the Honors College, at the University of Houston. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1983, with Jerry Marsden as his advisor. Before coming to Houston, he did two years of postdoctoral studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Besides differential geometry, he is passionately curious about the ways dogs, cats, and goldfish think. Shiing-Shen Chern is Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, and Director Emeritus of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute. He is also Distinguished Visiting Professor Emeritus at the University of Houston. Chern received his D.Sc. in 1936, as a student of W. Blaschke. He carried out his postdoctoral studies under E. Cartan. Chern has garnered a good number of distinctions to date. These include the Chauvenet Prize (1970), the National Medal of Science (1975), the Humboldt Award (1982), the Steele Prize (1983), and the Wolf Foundation Prize (1983-84). Zhongmin Shen is Associate Professor of Mathematics at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI). He earned his Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1990 under Detlef Gromoll. He spent 1990 to 1991 at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at Berkeley, and 1991 to 1993 as a Hildebrandt Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.