He retired a few years ago as Director of the Division of Mathematical Sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Previously, he served as Chair of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (U of I). He is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at U of I.
He earned an Engineering degree in Zurich, and a Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from the University of Zurich. He subsequently was a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the University of Paris, at Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley, an Associate Professor at Wesleyan University, before joining the U of I faculty in 1968, where he became a Full Professor in 1970.
He published approximately 100 articles and monographs, mainly on his research in differential geometry and topology, in particular the geometry of foliations and geometric applications of partial differential equations. His bibliography lists nine books. He was continually supported by grants from the NSF from 1967 to 1990. He served as Editor and Managing Editor of the Illinois Journal of Mathematics, and edited the collected works of K.T. Chen. He served on numerous committees at universities and professional societies.
He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Buenos Aires, Auckland (New Zealand), Heidelberg, Rome, Santiago de Compostela, Leuven (Belgium), as well as at the Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, the Ecole Polytechnique in Paris, the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in Bonn, Keio University in Tokyo, Tohoku University in Sendai, and Hokkaido University in Sapporo. He has given approximately 200 invited lectures at various institutions around the world.
He has been an Invited Hour Speaker of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) in 1976, a recipient of a 1985 Award for Study in a Second Discipline (Physics) at U of I, the 1994 William F. Prokasy Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at U of I, a 2002 Frederick A. Howes Commendation for Public Service from the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the 2008 SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession (citation).
Philippe Tondeur in recent years chaired the Board of Governors of the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications at the University of Minneapolis, and served on the National Advisory Council of the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute at the Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, North Carolina. He also served as a member of the National Committee on Mathematics of the U.S. National Research Council, and as a US Delegate to the General Assembly and International Congress of Mathematician in 2006.
He currently is a member of the International Scientific Advisory Board of the Canadian Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems (MITACS) Centre of Excellence, and a Trustee of the Instituto Madrileno de Estudios Avanzadas-MATH (IMDEA-MATH) in Madrid. He is a member of the Committee on Science Policy of SIAM, the Science Policy Committee and other Committees of the Mathematical Association of America and of the AMS, as well as the Joint Policy Board of the Mathematical Sciences in the US.