Professor Jacob Palis is a Brazilian mathematician. Since 1973 he has held a permanent position as professor at Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He was director of the same institute from 1993 until 2003. He was Secretary-General of the Third World Academy of Sciences from 2004 to 2006, and elected its President in 2006. He was also president of the International Mathematical Union from 1999 to 2002. He studied under Stephen Smale at University of California, Berkeley, and his 1968 thesis was entitled On Morse-Smale Diffeomorphisms. Palis himself has advised more than forty Ph.D. students so far from more than ten countries.
Palis has received numerous medals and decoration. He is a foreign member of several academies of sciences, including the United States National Academy of Sciences and the French Academy of Sciences. In 2005 Palis was selected a member of the Legion of Honor. He is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. In 2010 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for his fundamental contributions in the mathematical theory of dynamical systems that has been the basis for many applications in various scientific disciplines (such as in the study of oscillations).