Dominique Foata: key obituary facts
Is Dominique Foata dead? Yes. Dominique Foata died on September 30, 2026, at age 91.
Cause of death: Dominique Foata's cause of death has not been publicly confirmed.
What was Dominique Foata known for?
He was a French mathematician.
More about Dominique Foata
Born: 12 October 1934.
Place of birth: Damascus.
Place of death: Strasbourg.
Gender: male.
Occupation: mathematician, researcher, university teacher.
Nationality: France.
Education: University of Paris.
Employer: University of Strasbourg.
Also known as: D. Foata.
Known for: Foata's transition lemmaCartier–Foata matricesTraces.
Dominique Foata, a French mathematician whose work helped shape enumerative combinatorics, died September 30, 2026, aged 91.
Born in Damascus on October 12, 1934, he studied at the University of Paris and later worked as a researcher and university teacher at the University of Strasbourg. Foata helped develop a modern approach to classical combinatorics alongside Pierre Cartier and Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, contributing to the growth of algebraic combinatorics.
His work on permutation statistics and his combinatorial approach to special functions were among his notable contributions. His name is also associated with Foata’s transition lemma, Cartier–Foata matrices and traces. In 1983, he gave an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Warsaw. With Adalbert Kerber and Volker Strehl, he founded the mathematics journal Séminaire Lotharingien de Combinatoire. Foata also contributed to the pseudonymous collective M. Lothaire. His honors included the Scientific Prize of the Union des Assurances de Paris, awarded in September 1985.