Mathematician and former NFL offensive lineman
John Urschel is a mathematician and a former NFL offensive lineman. Urschel attended Penn State University, where he played football and received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics. While at Penn State, he was awarded the Campbell Trophy, commonly known as the “Academic Heisman,” and the Sullivan Award, presented to “the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States.” Urschel was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in 2014, and played three seasons in the NFL. He has published a number of research papers in areas including graph theory, machine learning, and numerical analysis. In 2017, Urschel was named to Forbes’ “30 under 30” list of outstanding young scientists, and, in 2019, published a New York Times-bestselling memoir, Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football. He is currently a fourth-year PhD student in mathematics at MIT.
