Percy Deift was born in 1945 in Durban, South Africa, where he obtained degrees in chemical engineering, physics, and mathematics, and he received a Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Princeton University in 1977. He is a Silver Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical sciences, New York University, where he has been a faculty member since 1976. Deift is known for his work on spectral theory, integrable systems, random matrix theory and Riemann-Hilbert problems.  

Deift is a fellow of the American Mathematical Society (elected 2012), a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 2003), and of  the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (elected 2009). He is a co-winner of the 1998 Polya Prize, and was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 1999. He gave an invited address at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Berlin in 1998 and plenary addresses in 2006 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Madrid and at the International Congress on Mathematical Physics in Rio de Janeiro. Deift gave the Gibbs Lecture at the Joint Meeting of the American Mathematical Society in 2009.

The video recording of each talk can be viewed here.