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was a Japanese mathematician and Michael Henry Strater Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University who worked in number theory, automorphic forms, and arithmetic geometry. He was known for developing the theory of complex multiplication of abelian varieties and Shimura varieties, as well as posing the Taniyama–Shimura conjecture which ultimately led to the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem. Gorō Shimura was born in Hamamatsu, Japan, on 23 February 1930. Shimura graduated with a B.A. in mathematics and a D.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Tokyo in 1952 and 1958, respectively. After graduating, Shimura became a lecturer at the University of Tokyo, then worked abroad — including ten months in Paris and a seven-month stint at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study — before returning to Tokyo, where he married Chikako Ishiguro. He then moved from Tokyo to join the faculty of Osaka University, but growing unhappy with his funding situation, he decided to seek employment in the United States. Through André Weil he obtained a position at Princeton University. Shimura joined the Princeton faculty in 1964 and retired in 1999, during which time he advised over 28 doctoral students and received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1970, the Cole Prize for number theory in 1977, the Asahi Prize in 1991, and the Steele Prize for lifetime achievement in 1996. Shimura described his approach to mathematics as "phenomenological": his interest was in finding new types of interesting behavior in the theory of automorphic forms. He also argued for a "romantic" approach, something he found lacking in the younger generation of mathematicians. Shimura used a two-part process for research, using one desk in his home dedicated to working on new research in the mornings and a second desk for perfecting papers in the afternoon. Shimura had two children, Tomoko and Haru, with his wife Chikako. Shimura died on 3 May 2019 in Princeton, New Jersey at the age of 89.