melrose received in 1974 his ph.d. from cambridge university under f. gerard friedlander with thesis "initial and initial-boundary value problems". he then became a research fellow at st john’s college, cambridge. in 1977 he was a visiting scholar at the institute for advanced study. since 1976 he has been a professor at mit, where since 2006 he has been the simons professor of mathematics. from 1999 to 2002 he was the chair of the committee for pure mathematics at mit.