frenkel emigrated to the united states in 1979. he received his phd from yale university in 1980 with a dissertation on the "orbital theory for affine lie algebras". he held positions at the ias and msri, and a tenured professorship at rutgers university, before taking his current job of tenured professor at yale university. he was elected to the national academy of sciences in 2018. he is also a fellow of the american academy of arts and sciences.