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In Memoriam Archive

2011

Bevan K. Youse passed away on December 13, 2011, at the age of 84. He joined the MAA in 1951 and he was a retired professor of mathematics at Emory University. His obituary can be found here.

William Seugling, 89, passed away on December 5, 2011. Seugling joined MAA in 1950. Read more about his life here.

James Ylvisaker, 73, passed away November 22, 2011. An MAA member since 1992, read more about his life here.

Edward John Specht, 96, passed away on November 9, 2011. An MAA member since 1949, read more about his life here.

Robert Young, 89, passed away on October 1, 2011. Young joined MAA in 1960. Read more about his life here.

Frederick "Ty" Cunningham, 90, passed away on September 28, 2011. An MAA member since 1955, read more about his life here.

Elaine D. Bohanon passed away on September 12, 2011, at the age of 71. She was a mathematics professor at Bemidji State University for over 30 years, and a member of the MAA for 33 years. Her obituary is available online.

Solomon Leader, 85, passed away on August 13, 2011. An MAA member since 1958, read more about his life here.

Paul Meier, 87, passed away August 7, 2011. An MAA Lifetime member, he joined the MAA in 1948. Read more about his life here.

Dick Jarvinen, 72, passed away on July 6, 2011. Read more about his life here (pdf).

Richard Gustafson, 79, passed away on July 4, 2011. Read more about his life here.

Claire Krukenberg, 71, passed away on June 20, 2011. An MAA member since 1969, read more about her life here.

Hubert Ludwig, 76, passed away on June 19, 2011. An MAA member since 1964, read more about his life here.

Jean Drach passed away on June 13, 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of Calculus" by students at The College of Mount St. Joseph, she has been an MAA member since 1963. Read more about her life here.

Howard Wicke, 87, passed away on June 6, 2011. An MAA member since 1952, read more about his life here.

Jacques A. Mizrahi passed away on May 30, 2011, at the age of 88. He was a member of the MAA since 1967.

John E. Osborn, 74, passed away on May 30, 2011. An MAA member since 1972, read more about his life here.

Theodore G. Ostrom, 95, passed away on May 12, 2011. An MAA member since 1948, read more about his life here.

Franklin Takashi Iha, 73, passed away on May 9, 2011. An MAA member since 1978, read more about her life here.

J. Ernest Wilkins, 87, passed away on May 1, 2011. An MAA member since 1947, read more about his life here.

David R. Hayes, 73, passed away April 10, 2011. An MAA member since 1964, read more about his life here.

Ronald Nunke, 85, passed away April 3, 2011. An MAA member since 1957, read more about his life here.

John L. Brown, 85, passed away on February 20, 2011. An MAA member since 1952, read more about his life here.

Monica Wyzalek, 77, passed away on January 13, 2011. An MAA member since 1954, read more about her life here.

Clyde Corcoran passed away on January 7, 2011, at the age of 83. He was a mathematics teacher at Whittier High School in California, and a member of the MAA since 1987. Corcoran won the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching in 1983 and the George Pólya Memorial Award from the California Mathematics Council in 1987. He also served as the President of the California Mathematics Council – South and taught at the Claremont Graduate School.

2010

Keith Schrader, 72, passed away on December 27, 2010. An MAA member since 2007, read more about his life here.

Louis Grimm passed away on December 14, 2010, at the age of 77. He was on the faculty of the University of Missouri at Rolla for more than 30 years. Grimm was a life member of the MAA, with a membership of more than 60 years. Information from his career can be found on page 3 of a newsletter published by Missouri-Rolla. In 2001, Grimm received a distinguished teaching award from the Missouri Section of the MAA.

Hughes Hoyle, 67, died on November, 25, 2010. MAA member since 1946. Read more about his life here.

Marlene Guers died on November 19, 2010. An instructor of mathematics at Penn State Hazleton since 1981, she became a member of MAA in 1993. Read more about her life here.

Bernard Sohmer, 81, passed away on November 10, 2010. An MAA member since 1959, read more about his life here.

Peter J. Hilton, 87, died on November 6, 2010. Author and distinguished professor at Binghamton University, Hilton served as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park alongside Alan Turing during World War II. He joined MAA in 1964. Read more about his life here.

Edward Nelson, died on October 26, 2010. MAA member since 1951. Read more about his life here.

Peter Hagerty, 87, died on October 22, 2010. Read more about his life here.

Constance Reid, 92, died on October 14, 2010. A highly respected author and biographer of mathematicians, Reid won many MAA awards for her mathematical exposition. She joined MAA in 1988. Read more about her life here.

Benoît Mandelbrot, 85, died October 14, 2010. Mandelbrot coined the term "fractal" and his seminal work, The Fractal Geometry of Nature (1982), turned fractals into a respectable idea in mathematics. Read more about his life here.

Jerry Marsden, 68, died on September 21, 2010. Carl F. Braun Professor of Engineering, Control and Dynamical Systems, and Applied and Computational Mathematics at Caltech since 1992, Marsden joined MAA in 1974. Read more about his life here.

Richard Maher, 67, died on September 14, 2010. An MAA member since 1971, Maher served as an associate professor of mathematics and statistics at Loyola University of Chicago. Read more about his life here.

Kim Ray Penrose, 66, died on September 6, 2010. An MAA member since 1967, he worked as a simulation engineer at CEI. Read more about his life here.

Joan Morrison, 63, died on August 20, 2010. A member of the MAA since 2004, Morrison joined the Goucher mathematics department in 1980. Read more about her life here.

Wayne Lingle, 62, passed away July 28, 2010. An MAA member since 1970, read more about his life here.

Marie Wurster died on July 26, 2010. A dedicated professor of mathematics at Temple University, Wurster joined MAA in 1947. Read more about her life here.

Barbara (Bloom) Ranson, 60,died on July 26, 2010. A geotechnical engineer and teacher of mathematics, she had been a member of MAA since 2003. Read more about her life here.

David Harold Blackwell, 91, died on July 8, 2010. Emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, Blackwell was the first African American elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He joined MAA in 1953. The National Association of Mathematicians (NAM) David Blackwell Lecture is presented annually at MathFest, MAA's summer meeting. Read more about his life here.

Vivian Heigl, 86, died on July 3, 2010. She joined MAA in 1949. She served as a mathematics lecturer at the University of Wisconsin - Parkside, retiring in 1995. Read more about her life here.

James A. Hummel, 82, died on June 23, 2010. Hummel served as mathematics professor at University of Maryland from 1957 to 1993. He joined MAA in 1951. Read more about his life here.

William F. Lucas, 77, died on June 7, 2010. He had been an MAA member since 1962. Lucas was a world-renowned expert in Game Theory who specialized in fair-division and voting systems. Read more about his life here.

Leo J. Schneider died suddenly on June 6, 2010, at the age of 72. He was a professor at John Carroll University from 1963 until his death and a member of the MAA since 1963. Schneider was known nationally for his work with mathematics competitions, authoring statewide competitions for Michigan and Massachusetts, as well as New York State’s NYSML Competition for ten years. He was also a devoted member of the ARML Committee and served as Head Judge for their annual championship meet for many years. Dr. Schneider served in many capacities on the MAA’s American Mathematics Competitions Committee since 1974, chairing the AMC Committee from 1987 to 1994. He was elected a national Councilor for Pi Mu Epsilon, and then served as the national Secretary/Treasurer of that organization for nine years. He was active in the Ohio Section of the MAA, serving a term as President and then Governor of the Section. Schneider was awarded the Distinguished College or University Teaching award in 2004 from the MAA Ohio Section. Posthumously, in August 2010, Schneider was awarded the MacDuffee Award by Pi Mu Epsilon for lifetime service. Further information about his career can be found on this page published by John Carroll University and this page on the MAA site.

Vladimir Arnold, 73, died on June 3, 2010. Read more about the life of this wide-ranging mathematician here.

Alphonso DiPietro, 88, died on May 31, 2010. DiPietro was a mathematics professor at Eastern Illinois University for 50 years. Read more about his life here. DiPietro had been an MAA member since 1959.

Martin Gardner, 95, died on May 22, 2010. Acclaimed mathematics and science writer, Gardner introduced readers to the joys of recreational mathematics, bedeviled cranks, and pseudoscientists. Read more about his life here.

MAA and ThinkFun hosted a reception to celebrate Gardner's work and continue his pursuit of a playful and fun approach to mathematics, science, art, magic, literature, philosophy, and puzzles, on what would have been Gardner's 96th birthday. Read more about that event here.

MAA Tribute to Martin Gardner Page

Walter Rudin, 89, died May 20, 2010. A mathematician and author, Rudin taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for more than 30 years. For more on his life click here.

Paul Garabedian, 82, died on May 13, 2010. Garabedian lead the division of computational fluid dynamics at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Read more about his life here.

Robert Jules Levit, 94, died on May 13, 2010. He was awarded the Legion of Merit by the Secretary of Defense for materially aiding in the successful prosecution of the war for the analysis, design and development of cryptographic technologies and tools used to secure and protect Naval communications during World War II. He joined the MAA in 1947. Read more about his life here.

Sanford Segal, 72, died May 7, 2010. Segal was professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Rochester where he taught for 44 years before retiring in 2008. Read more about his life here. Segal had been an MAA member since 1958.

James Robert Wesson, 88, died April 25, 2010. A mathematician at Vanderbilt University and author of an influential algebra textbook, Wesson had been an MAA member since 1949. Read more about his life here.

Dorothy Knight, 94, died on April 21, 2010. An MAA member since 1942, she taught mathematics at Muskingum College for the 41 years. Read more about her life here.

Robert Bryan, 87, died on April 13, 2010. Professor emeritus of mathematics at Knox College, Bryan joined MAA in 1963. Read more about his life here.

Timothy Robertson, 73, passed away on April 5, 2010. An MAA member since 1960, read more about his life here.

Richard Stauduhar, 69, died on March 26, 2010. He was a retired mathematician from the SETI Institute and UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab in California. Stauduhar had been an MAA member since 1989.

Eric Avern Sturley, 95, died on March 23, 2010. An MAA member since 1949, Sturley served as an interpreter and intelligence officer in the US Army during World War II. Read more about his life here.

John A. Berton, 79, died on March 23, 2010. Berton earned his PhD from the University of Illinois-Champaign in 1964. He taught at the University of Illinois, Indiana State University and Ripon College before moving to Ohio Northern University where he retired in 1996. Berton had been an MAA member since 1959. For more on his life click here.

Eric A. Sturley died on March 23, 2010. He had been a member of MAA since 1949. Read more about his life here (pdf).

George W. Heigho, 77, died on March 19, 2010. Heigho held graduate degrees in history of science and mathematics from Harvard University and Boston University. He was an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Physics at Suffolk University, MA, before working for IBM. He retired from IBM in 1995 as a Senior Information Developer. For more on his life click here.

Alice Beckenbach, 93, died on March 18, 2010. A lifetime member of the MAA, she was married to Edwin Beckenbach, a long-time leader in the publications program of the Association and a well-known professor of mathematics at the University of California at Los Angeles. The Beckenbach Book Prize is named in his honor.

Ts'ing-Hi Tong, 86, died on March 18, 2010, in Jacksonville, Illinois. He was a faculty member in the mathematics department of Illinois College from 1964 until his retirement in 1993. He taught the college's very first computer programming course (Spring, 1966). After living in the Shanghai region in China, and then Saigon, Vietnam, he moved to the U.S. and received his BA in mathematics (with minor in French) from Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) in 1961, and MS in mathematics from DePaul University (Chicago) in 1963. He was an MAA member from 1964-2004.

Dean C. Benson died on March 18, 2010. Benson earned his MA. and PhD in mathematics at Iowa State University and was a professor at several colleges, ending with 23 years at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. An MAA member since 1954, he served on MAA's Board of Governors and remained an Honorary Member. Read more about his life here.

Mary Elizabeth Layne Boas, 92, passed away on February 17, 2010. Boas earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mathematics from the University of Washington in 1938 and 1940, and her PhD in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1948. She taught physics at DePaul University in Chicago for three decades before retiring in 1987. In 2006 she published the third edition of her textbook Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences. Boas had been an MAA member 1972 - 2003. For more on her life click here.

Alan Goldman, 77, passed away on February 13, 2010. Goldman earned his PhD from Princeton University in 1956 and worked in operations research at the National Bureau of Standards until 1979.In 1979 he moved to Johns Hopkins University where he remained until 1999. For more on his life click here. He had been an MAA member since 1951.

Lester Dubins, 89, passed away on February 11, 2010. Dubins was a distinguished probabilist who joined the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley in 1962. He remained there until his retirement in 2004. He been an MAA member since 1956.

Christopher L. Byrnes, 60, passed away on February 7, 2010. Byrnes earned his PhD from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975, and taught at the University of Utah, Harvard University and Arizona State University where he founded the Center for Engineering Research. Byrnes went on to become the dean of School of Engineering and Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis. At the time of his death he was a visiting professor in optimization and systems theory at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He had been an MAA member since 2007. For more on his life click here.

William Donald "Bill" Markel, 77, died on February 5, 2010. He had been an MAA member since 1949. Passionate about fitness, music, and mathematics, Markel served as a professor of mathematics and chair of the department of education at Hanover College from 1987 to 2002. Read more about his life here.

Richard Lashof, 87, passed away on February 4, 2010. Lashof earned his PhD from Columbia University in 1954 and joined the faculty at the University of Chicago. He received a post doctoral fellowship from NSF in 1959 and during 1960-61 he was a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, NJ. Lashof helped transform the field of geometric and differential topology into an important mathematical force. He had been an MAA member since 1961. For more on his life click here.

Steve Fisk, 63, passed away on January 31, 2010 after a long battle with leukemia. Fisk earned his PhD from Harvard and accepted a post-doctoral teaching postion at MIT. He moved to Bowdoin College in 1977 where he remained until his death. Many in the mathematics community will remember him through his proof of the Art Gallery Theorem. Fisk had been an MAA member since 1962. For more on his life click here .

James F. Hannan 87, passed away on January 26, 2010. Hannan earned his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He had been a professor of statistics and probability at Michigan State University. He had been an MAA member since 1956.

Warren Loud, 88, passed away on January 15, 2010. Loud earned his PhD from MIT, and taught at the University of Minnesota for 45 years. He served as associate chair of the math department in the 1960s, and was the founder and adviser for the university's math team. Loud received Institute of Technology Alumni Society's Outstanding Teaching Award in 1979. His specialty was ordinary differential equations. He had been an MAA member since 1947. For more on his life click here.

Michael E. Moody, 57, passed away on January 21, 2010. Moody earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1979, and taught at Washington State University from 1981 to 1994. He then moved to Harvey Mudd College, serving as department chair from 1996 to 2002. Largely as a result of his leadership, HMC's math department was awarded the AMS's inaugural award for an Exemplary Mathematics Program in 2006. In 2002, he moved to Olin College where he served as its VP for Academic Affairs and founding Dean of Faculty. He had been an MAA member since 1996. For more on his life, click here. .

Frederick H. Steen, 102, died on January 13, 2010. Steen received his PhD from Harvard University and taught at Georgia Tech for eight years. He then moved on to Allegheny College where he remained for 33 years. He had been an MAA member since 1935. For more on his life click here

Eugene Pringle, 70, died on January 5, 2010. He had been an MAA member since 1961.

2009

D. Bruce Erickson, 66, died on December 23, 2009. He had been an MAA member since 1963. For more on his life click here.

William Duffie, 74, died on December 23, 2009. He had been an MAA member since 1973.

Mary-Elizabeth Hamstrom, 82, died on December 2, 2009. Hamstrom earned her PhD from the University of Texas with R.L. Moore as her advisor. She held several teaching positions starting with Goucher College in Baltimore, MD. From there she moved to the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton. Hamstrom then moved to the University of Illinois where she remained until her retirement in 1999. She had been an MAA member since 1959. For more on her life click here.

Howard L. Penn, died suddenly of a heart attack on November 23, 2009. Penn was very active in the Maryland-DC-Virginia section of the MAA, holding several positions including chairman. He was also a frequent speaker at the Joint Mathematics Meetings and MathFest. He had been scheduled to give a talk on Mathematics and Sports at the upcoming Joint Meetings in San Francisco. Penn had been an MAA member since 1974. For more on his life click here.

Floyd Bowling, 98, died on November 23, 2009. Bowling earned his PhD at the University of Tennessee and taught at Tennessee Wesleyan College. He had been an MAA member since1941. For more on his life click here.

Martha Bettina Richmond, 51, died on November 22, 2009. She was the victim of a homicide. Richmond had been a professor of mathematics at Western Kentucky University for the past 23 years. She had been an MAA member since 1982. For more on this click here.

Alfred Gaetano Vassalotti, 80, died on October 21, 2009. Vassalotti earned his masters in mathematics from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He taught mathematics at Hofstra University from 1961 to 1997. He had been an MAA member since 1964

Frank Samuel Beckman, 88, died on October 16, 2009. Beckman received his Bachelors in mathematics from City College in New York City, and his Masters and PhD from Columbia University. After receiving his PhD in 1951 he went to work for IBM. In 1971 Beckman moved to Brooklyn College where he was the chair and founder of the Computer and Information Science Center. He held that position until 1985 when he moved to CUNY Graduate Center in New York City as the founder and executive director for the computer science PhD department. Beckman had been an MAA member since 1947. For more on his life click here.

Melvin Henriksen, 82, passed away on October 14, 2009. A significant portion of his career was spent at Harvey Mudd College, where he served as Professor of Mathematics from 1969 to 1997. Henriksen earned his PhD from Wisconsin in 1951, and taught at Alabama, Wayne State, Purdue, and Case Western before coming to HMC. Henriksen did pioneering work on rings of continuous functions. He served as co-editor (with Stan Wagon) on a column in The American Mathematical Monthly on The Teaching of Mathematics. For more on his life, click here.

Leonard David Berkovitz, 85, died on October 13, 2009. Berkovitz began his studies as a chemistry major at the University of Chicago, but after serving in World War II he changed course and went on to obtain his Masters and PhD in mathematics. He spent time as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and at CalTech as a research fellow. In 1962 Berkovitz joined the faculty of Purdue University where he remained until his retirement. He had been an MAA member since 1962. For more on his life click here.

J.A. Zilber (Joseph A.) died on October 4, 2009 after a long battle with Parkinsons disease.  He  was an associate Editor of Math Reviews  from  1958 until 1962 when he began teaching at Ohio State University. He  received his AB, MA, and PhD from Harvard. He co- authored the paper with Samuel Eilenberg which became known as the Eilenberg-Zilber theorum. He was a member of MAA for more than 60 years.

Gary Regensburg, 59, died on September 28, 2009. He was a graduate of Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago and worked as an engineer at Ortho-McNeil. He had been an MAA member since 1985. For more on his life click here.

Alice T. Schafer, 94 died on September 27, 2009. Schafer received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 1942. She taught at several colleges during her career, spending most of it at Connecticut College. She moved on to Wellesley College where she retired in 1980 as the Helen Day Gould Professor of Mathematics. After her retirement she taught at Simmons College and at Marymount University in Arlington, VA. Professor Schafer was given the MAA's Award for Distinguished Service in 1988. She had been an MAA member since 1953. For more on her life click here.

Donald G. Duncan, 89, passed away on September 23, 2009. Duncan earned his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1951, and taught at the University of Arizona and San Jose State University. He then moved to Sonoma State University in 1963 and served as its first chair of the mathematics department. He had been a member of the MAA since 1951. For more on his life click here.

James O. Brooks, 79 died on September 12, 2009 of Parkinson's disease. He earned his undergraduate degree from Oberlin College, his Masters and his PhD from the University of Michigan. Brooks taught mathematics at Villanova University from 1965 to 1994. He had been an MAA member since 1960. For more on his life click here

Donald Dean Bushell, 79 died on September 12, 2009 at his home in Durango, CO. Bushell graduated from Kearney State University. After a stint in the army he began a teaching career that spanned 53 years. He had been an MAA member since 1963. For more on his life click here

Robert Davis, 90 died on September 12, 2009. He was a retired professor from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and had been an MAA member since 1953.

James Tyson, 89 passed away in September. He had been an MAA member since 1991.

Martin Bates, 83, died on August 22, 2009. Bates attended Cornell University where he studied engineering, mathematics, and physics completing both a bachelors degree and a Masters degree. After graduation Bates went to work for Bell Aircraft. Several years later he joined Sierra Research Corporation where he remained until his retirement in 1997. He had been an MAA member since 1949. For more on his life click here.

Agnes Wieschenberg, 71, died on August 22, 2009. She had been an MAA member since 1972.

J. Richard VandeVelde, 74, died on August 12, 2009. He had been an MAA member since 1962.

Stephen Whitman Willard, 67, passed away on August 7, 2009 in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. Willard earned his PhD from the University of Rochester, and held positions at Lehigh University and Case Western Reserve University before joining the faculty at the University of Alberta. He is perhaps best known for his book General Topology which was published in 1970 and is still in print today.He had been an MAA member since 1963.

David Meronk, 74 died on July 30, 2009 in Perrysburg, OH. Meronk received his undergraduate degree from Marquette University and his MS and PhD from Notre Dame University. He began teaching at St. Mary of the Springs College (now known as Ohio Dominican). He moved to Bowling Green State University in 1967 and stayed until his retirement in 1995. He had been an MAA member since 1970. For more on his life click here.

Harold P. Edmundson, 87 died on July 9, 2009. Edmundson received his PhD from UCLA. During the mid-50s he worked at NSA and the RAND Corporation think tank. During this time he also taught mathematics at UCLA. In 1967 he moved to teaching full time settling at the University of Maryland in the computer science department where he stayed until his retirement in 1991. For more on his life click here. Edmundson had been an MAA member since 1946.

Frederick N. Webb, 64, died on July 12, 2009. Webb received his Masters in computer science from Boston University. He worked as a computer scientist for his entire career. While at Bolt, Beranek and Newman he helped develop tools for the internet. At the time of his death he was working for Total View Technology. He had been an MAA member since 1990. For more on his life click here.

Joseph Zelle, 97, died on July 11, 2009. Zelle was a radio engineer and a translator. He had been an MAA member since 1985.

James Hatton Wahab, 88, died on July 8, 2009. Dr. Wahab received his undergraduate degree from William and Mary, and his masters' and PhD from the University of North Carolina. He held teaching positions at Georgia Tech, the University of North Carolina, University of Virginia, Louisiana State University in New Orleans as Chairman, William & Mary in Norfolk, VA, University of North Carolina - Charlotte as Chairman and Academic Dean, Rollins College and the University of North Florida. From 1968 to 1983 Wahab taught at the University of South Carolina serving as chair of the math department from 1968-1973. He was also very active in the Southeastern section of the MAA serving as chair twice.He was a visiting lecturer and also was a distinguished teaching award winner.

Klaus Fisher, 65, died on July 2, 2009. Fisher received his PhD in 1973 from Northwestern University. He joined the faculty of George Mason University in 1973 and had been serving his second term as chair of the mathematical sciences department at the time of his death. He had been a member of the MAA since 1986. For more on his life click here.

Ara Broocks Cox Sullenberger, passed away on June 22, 2009, at the age of 76. She was a life member of the MAA, maintaining membership for 45 years. Sullenberger was professor emeritus at Tarrant County College in Texas, after retiring in 1995. Along with her obituary, information about her life and career can be found in a 1974 letter to Pi Beta Phi (see page 2).

Sam Perlis, 96, died on June 22, 2009. Perlis received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1938. He taught at the University of Michigan and Illinois Institute of Technolgy. He was also employed by Lockheed Aircraft during World War II. In 1946 he moved to West Lafayette, IN where he taught at Purdue University until his retirement in 1983. Perlis is best remembered for his 1942 discovery of a mathematical technique now called the Perlis-Jacobson radical, for the 1950 Perlis-Walker Theorem, and for his book Theory of Matrices, published in 1952. He had been an MAA member since 1963. For more on his life click here.

Rita Wagner, 88, died on June 19, 2009. She had been an MAA member since 1960.

Gordon Raisbeck, 84, died June 15, 2009. He was an MAA member since 1949. Read more about his life here.

Marion Pour-El , 81, died on June 10, 2009. Pour-El received her bachelor's degree in physics from Hunter College. She received a full scholarship to Harvard University where she received a Masters and a PhD. She was one of the first women to receive a PhD in mathematics. After receiving her PhD she spent several years teaching at Penn State before moving to the Institute for Advanced Studies where she worked with Kurt Gödel. In 1964 she joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota where she remained until her retirement in 2000. She had been an MAA member since 1961. For more on her life click here.

Don Hill, 67, died on June 10, 2009. Professor Hill received his PhD from Florida State University and taught mathematics for 35 years at Florida A&M University. Hill was active in the MAA serving as a governor on MAA's Board of Governors. He was also a delegate to the Fifth International Congress on Mathematical Education and was named as the first visiting scholar to the United Methodist Africa University in Zimbabwe. Hill was named by Florida A&M University's Black Archives Research Center and Museum to their wall of distinction. He donated many rare and unique African artifacts that he gathered on his many trips to that continent. Hill had been an MAA member for 36 years.

Tyre Newton, 88, died on June 10, 2009 after a short battle with cancer. Newton received his BS in mathematics from Colorado A & M. He earned his M.A. and PhD from the University of Georgia. Newton taught at the University of Nebraska and Colorado A&M before moving to the Washington State University where he remained until his retirement in 1987. Newton had been an MAA member since 1950. For more on his life click here.

Clarence E. Hardgrove died on June 2, 2009. She was on the faculty of Northern Illinois University from 1950 until her retirement in 1978. Hardgrove served as a member of the Panel of Teacher Training of the MAA Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics. She had been a long time member of the MAA.

Alvin M. White, 84, died on June 2, 2009. White received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University, his master's from UCLA, and his PhD from Stanford. In 1962 White joined the faculty at Harvey Mudd College where he remained until his retirement in 1997. In 1993 he edited Essays in Humanistic Mathematics for the MAA. White had been a long time member of the MAA. For more on his life click here.

Charles J.A. Halberg, Jr.,, 87, died on June 1, 2009. He received his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and Pomona College. He earned his M.A. and PhD from UCLA. Halberg spent most of his career at the University of California, Riverside. He was very active in campus affairs and was responsible for many innovations. For more on Halberg's life click here.

Takayuki Tamura died on June 1, 2009. He spent most of his career teaching mathematics at the University of California, Davis. He had been an MAA member since 1960.

Charles Chambers, 67, died on May 20, 2009. Chambers received his B.S., MS, and PhD in physics from the University of Alabama. He was a world renowned researcher, educator, counselor, engineer, and administrator. Chambers served as the fifth president of Lawrence Technological University, LTU, in Southfield, MI. He was an expert in accreditation and led many accrediting teams to universities in the North Central Region. Chambers was also a consultant to Congress and numerous federal science and education agencies, major foundations, and other organizations. He had been an MAA member since 1975. For more on his life click here.

Alan Meyerhoff, 83, died on May 19, 2009. He had been an MAA member since 1964.

Chuan-Chih Hsiung, 93, died on May 6, 2009. Dr. Hsiung was a leading mathematician in the field of differential geometry and was the founder of the Journal of Differential Geometry. He was professor emeritus at Lehigh University where he had taught for 56 years. Hsiung had been an MAA member since 1948. For more on his life click here.

Harry Hochstadt, 83, died May 4, 2009. Hochstadt received his PhD in 1956 from New York University. He was the head of the math department at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute from 1963 to 1990. He was an MAA member since 1962.

Susan Patterson, 68 died on April 18, 2009 after a long battle with cancer.She received her BA from Mount Holyoke College and her MS from Clemson University. Patterson taught mathematics at Erskine College for nine years before moving to Greenwood, SC where she taught at Cambridge Academy. She had been an MAA member since 1972. For more on her life click here.

Edward Harris, 84, died on April 11, 2009. He had been an MAA member since 1959.

Frederik De Jong, 53, died on April 8, 2009 of cancer. De Jong obtained his PhD in aerospace engineering from Cornell University. He began his career as a research scientist at Senior Research Associates in Glastonbury, CT. He had been working as a senior engineer at Pratt and Whitney. De Jong had been an MAA member since 1985.

Leonard Gillman, 92, died on April 7, 2009. Gillman was a former president and treasurer of the MAA, and an Emeritus professor at the University of Texas. He was known for his work in topology and had an Erdös number of 1. For more on Gillman's life click here.

Margaret C. Phillips, 94, passed away on April 5, 2009. Phillips was professor emerita from Old Dominion University where she began teaching in 1945 and stayed until her retirement in 1979. Phillips had been an MAA member since 1966.

Irving Good, 92, died on April 5, 2009 in Radford, VA. He was one of the founders of modern Bayesian inference and had been a member of the code-breaking team at Bletchley Park during World War II. He was educated in mathematics at Cambridge University. Good worked for the College of Science in Britain and held professorships at Virginia Tech in the Center for the Study of Science in Society and the Department of Philosophy. He had been a member of the MAA since 1960. For a more complete obituary click here.

Arthur Lindberg, 84, died on March 26, 2009. He taught mathematics at Dana College in Blair, NE and at Mankato State College. He had been an MAA member since 1950. For more on his life click here.

Edgar A. Franz, 89 died on March 16, 2009 in Jacksonville, Illinois. Franz began his career as an electrical engineer for Western Electric Company in Chicago. His teaching career began in 1949 when he accepted a teaching position at Culver-Stockton College in Canton, MO. In 1965 Franz became the head of the mathematics department of Illinois College where he remained until his retirement in 1987. He had been a long time MAA member.

Donald Vanderjagt, 71 died on March 10, 2009. He had been a professor of mathematics at Grand Valley State University and an MAA member since 1961. For more on his life click here.

Charalambos D. Aliprantis, 62, died in West Lafayette, Indiana on February 27, 2009 after a long battle with lung cancer. He earned his PhD at the California Institute of Technology. He spent 22 years at Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis, and the last 11 years at Purdue University in West Lafayette, where he was a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Mathematics. For more on Professor Aliprantis click here. Aliprantis had been an MAA member since 2006.

John Wrench, 97 died on February 27, 2009 in Frederick, MD. Wrench was a pioneer of high-precision computation using electronic computers. He holds a place in the record books for his 1961 computation (with Daniel Shanks) of 100,000 digits of pi. For more on Dr. Wrench click here.He had been a member of MAA since 1937.

Alfred Yonda, 89 died on February 12, 2009 in Millbury, MA after a long illness. He had been a member of the MAA since 1953.

Dianne Haber, 66, passed away on March 19, 2009. MAA member since 1974. Read more about her life here.

John R. Knudsen, 92, died on February 6, 2009. He received his PhD from New York University and had been an MAA member since 1961.

William R. Transue, 94 died on February 3, 2009. He received his PhD from Lehigh University in 1942. He spent some academic time overseas, spent a year at the Advanced Institute of Study working as an assistant to Marston Morse, and also taught at Kenyon before moving to Binghamton University in 1966 where he stayed until he retired in 1983. He had been an MAA member since 1949. For more on his life click here.

Frederick Carpenter, 95 died on February 2, 2009.He had been a professor of mathematics at Colorado School of Mines and Colorado State University. Carpenter had been an MAA member since 1944.

William Moser, 81, died on January 28, 2009 in Montreal, Quebec. William Moser received his B.Sc. (Manitoba, 1949), M.A. (Minnesota, 1951), and Ph.D. (Toronto, 1957). He was at the University of Saskatchewan 1955-1959, The University of Manitoba 1959-1964, and went on to become a professor at McGill University until his retirement in 1997 when he became Professor Emeritus. Moser was president of the CMS (1975-1977) and was awarded The Distinguished Service Award in 2003 (http://www.math.ca/Prizes/citations/ds2003.pdf). Please see a tribute to him at The Canadian Mathematical Society Web site: http://www.cms.math.ca/bulletins/2009/william-moser. Moser had been an MAA member since 1957.

Donald Rutledge LaTorre, 70, died on January 12, 2009 in Pendleton, South Carolina. LaTorre received his undergraduate degree from Wofford College and his Master's and PhD from the University of Tennessee. He began his teaching career as an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee before moving on to Clemson University. LaTorre spent 28 years at Clemson before retiring in 1995. For more on his life see http://www.math.clemson.edu/history/dlatorre.html. LaTorre had been an MAA member for 25 years.

2008

Elvy Fredrickson, 87, died on December 11, 2008. Professor emerita of mathematics, she became an MAA member in 1955. Read more about her life here.

France Sullivan died on December 14, 2008. MAA member since 1980. Read more about her life here.

John Wells Brace, 82, passed away on December 26, 2008. An MAA member since 1952. Read more about his life here.

Alexander Elder, 93, died on December 31, 2008. He spent most of his career at the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Labs at Aberdeen Proving Grounds. Elder had been an MAA member since 1959.

Rev. Stanley J. Bezuszka, 94, died on December 27, 2008. Bezuszka came to Boston College in 1939 and was a member of the faculty for more than 60 years. He had been an MAA member since 1953. For more on his life click here.

John Wells Brace, 82 died on December 26, 2008. He received his undergraduate degree in mathematics from Swarthmore and his MA and PhD from Cornell University. Brace taught at the University of Maryland from 1953 to 1984 officially retiring as emeritus in 1988. For more on Brace's life click here. Brace had been an MAA member since 1952.

Gertrude Hendrix, 103, died on December 26, 2008. She graduated from DePauw University with a bachelors in mathematics and went onto receive her masters in mathematics and education from the University of Illinois. Hendrix spent 26 years on the faculty of Eastern Illinois University before moving on to the University of Ilinois where she was invited to be a senior member of the Committee on School Mathematics. She was one of the principal formulators of the "new mathematics." Hendrix had been a member of the MAA since 1934. For more on her life click here.

David Gottlieb, 64, died on December 6, 2008. He received his PhD from Tel Aviv University in 1972. He worked at Massachusetts Institute of Technololgy, NASA Langley Reserach Center, and Tel Aviv University before joining the Applied Math department at Brown University in 1985. Gottlieb was best known for his contributions to the development of high order spectral methods. He joined the MAA in 2008.

F. Virginia Rohde, 90, died on December 5, 2008. She had been a senior professor of mathematics at Mississippi State University.Rohde had been an MAA member since 1945.

Richard Albert Good, 91, died on November 24, 2008 at his daughter's home. Professor Good ceived his undergraduate degree from Ashland College in 1939 and received his PhD in 1945 from the University of Wisconsin. He taught at the University of Maryland for 43 years and was known for his sense of humor, his innovation in teaching methods, and his interest in mathematics education. Professor Good was a member of the MAA's Icosahedron Society and had been a member of the MAA since 1944.

Robert Dressler, 82 died on November 19, 2008. Dressler was a pioneer in electronic research. He held a bachelors and masters in electrical engineering from Columbia University and an honorary doctorate of science from the University of South Florida. He had been an MAA member since 1989. For more on his life click here.

Bruce Meserve, 92 died on November 14, 2008 in Portland, ME. Professor Meserve earned his PhD from Duke University. He taught mathematics at the University of Illinois, Montclair State College, and the University of Vermont. Meserve also served as president of NCTM (1964-1966). For more on his life click here. Professor Meserve had been an MAA member since 1946.

Allan G. Anderson died on November 8, 2008. He had been an MAA member since 1952.

Dale Woods 84 died on October 24, 2008. He had been an MAA member since 1951.

Andrew Gleason died on October 17, 2008, at the age of 86. Born in 1921, Gleason showed a talent for mathematics early on. He graduated from Yale in 1942, and then enlisted in the Navy to do cryptographic work. In 1946, he was appointed to Harvard's Society of Fellows, but reenlisted in 1950 to do cryptographic work during the Korean War. He returned to Harvard, was promoted, and eventually was named Hollis professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy. He retired in 1992. As a mathematician, Gleason is best known for his work on Hilbert's Fifth Problem, which he solved together with Deane Montgomery, Leo Zippin, and Hidehiko Yamada. He was a remarkable and inspiring teacher, known for his careful course notes. He was generous with ideas and wore his immense knowledge very lightly. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Gleason became interested in mathematics education and especially in “calculus reform,” and this eventually led to the “Harvard Consortium” and the Calculus textbook that he co-authored with Deborah Hughes Hallett and others. Gleason was a long-time member and supporter of MAA, and in 1996 he received the MAA's highest honor, the Yueh-Gin Gung and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics.

Allan G. Anderson, 85 died on November 5, 2008.

Monty Fickel, died on October 2, 2008 in Chadron, Nebraska. Fickel obtained his PhD from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln in 1986. He was chair of the mathematics department of Chadron State College where he had started as an instructor in 1981. He was responsible for bringing many technological advancements to the college. Dr. Fickel had been an MAA member since 1991. For a more complete obituary click here.

Harry W. Berkowitz, 68, died on September 30, 2008. Berkowitz received his PhD from Rutgers University in 1968. He taught mathematics at the State University of New York Binghamton and New Paltz, NY before moving to AT&T where he retired in 2002. Berkowitz had been an MAA member since 1963.

Kenneth Hoffman, 77, died on September 29, 2008 following a heart attack. Hoffman received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Occidental College and his MA and PhD in mathematics from UCLA. He served as chair of the mathematics department of MIT from 1971 to 1979. Hoffman established and ran the math community's first Washington Office of Governmental and Public Affairs from 1984 to 1989. He had been a member of the MAA since 1968. For a more complete obituary click here.

Marcia P. Sward, former MAA Executive Director has died at age 69 from kidney cancer. Dr. Sward joined the MAA in 1980 as Associate Director. Her duties included directing the publication of the MAA's three journals and editing the newsletter FOCUS. She left the MAA in 1985 to become the Executive Director of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board (MSEB). Dr. Sward returned to the MAA in 1989 and served as Executive Director until 1999. After leaving the MAA she went to work at the Audubon Society as their Deputy Director and Head of Environmental Education. For a more complete obituary click here.

Edith Peterson, 60 died on September 28, 2008. She earned her PhD at the University of Nebraska. At the time of her death she taught mathematics at South East Community College. She had been an MAA member since 1970.

Henry John Barten, 92, died on September 24, 2008 in Gainesville, Florida. He received his BS in mechanical engineering from Johns Hopkins University and his MS in applied mechanics from the Illinois Institute of Technology. He worked at the Chicago Midway Laboratories as a senior research engineer, and at Pratt and Whitney Aircraft as a senior analytical engineer until his retirement in 1988. He had been a member of the MAA since 1940.

John J. Sweeney, Jr., 80 died on September 23, 2008 after suffering a heart attack. He taught math at the University of Pittsburgh and Duquesne University before moving to Indiana University of Pennsylvania to teach computer science. For more on his life click here.

Charles Christenson, 72, died on September 20, 2008. Christenson received his PhD from New Mexico State University in 1964. He taught at the University of Idaho and founded the Boron Scholarship Fund for Asian students. He had been a member of the MAA since 1964.

Donald H. Ballou, 100, died on September 15, 2008 in Middlebury, Vermont. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale, where as a senior he was selected as part of the team to participate in the first Putnam Competition. Ballou received his PhD from Harvard in 1934. After graduation he accepted a position at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he taught for eight years. In 1942 Ballou joined the faculty at Middlebury college where he remained until retirement in 1973. He had been an MAA member since 1935. To read a more detailed obituary click here.

Alfred Aeppli,79, died on September 14, 2008.He was born and raised in Zurich, Switzerland. He taught at Cornell University from 1957-1961. In 1961 he moved to St. Paul where he began teaching at the University of Minnesota. Aeppli remained there until he bacame ill last year. He had been an MAA member since 1960. For a more complete obituary click here.

Ronald G. Mosier, 70, died on September 13, 2008. He received his PhD from Wayne State University. Mosier spent 30 years at Daimler Chrysler AG before retiring in 2000. He also maintained an office at the University of Detroit Mercy. He had been an MAA member since 1967.

Richard Hord, 86 died in Keswick, VA on September 11, 2008. He had been an MAA member since 1971.

William Swift, 80, died at his home on September 11, 2008.He earned both his bachelor's and PhD degrees from the University of Kentucky. He taught at the University of Kentucky, Cornell University, Rutgers University and spent two years with Bell Telephone Laboratories before coming to Wabash College in 1963. Swift taught mathematics at Wabash until his retirement in 1990. He had been a member of the MAA since 1955. For a more complete obit click here.

David Edsel Johnson81 died on September 4, 2008 in Birmingham, Alabama. He received his PhD in applied mathematics from Auburn University. He taught math at Louisiana Tech and moved to the Louisiana State University where he taught in the electrical engineering department for 21 years. After retiring from LSU he taught mathematics at Birmingham Southern College for 11 years before retiring again in 1994.

Geraldine Coon, 94 died on August 26, 2008. She received her PhD from the University of Rochester in 1950. Coon began her career as a research mathematician at Taylor Instrument Companies in Rochester before moving to Goucher College where she retired in 1980. She had been an MAA member since 1935.

George Greaves, 67, died on August 24, 2008. He read Mathematics at Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities. His first position was at the University of Reading. In 1969 he moved to the University of New South Wales and Monmouthshire in Cardiff where he remained until his death. He had been a member of the MAA since 2006. For a more complete obituary click here.

William Beyer, 83, died on August 16, 2008 in Los Alamos, NM. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University. He began his career at General Electric Jet Engine division in Cincinnati, OH. He moved to Los Alamos Laboratories in 1959 remaining until his retirement in 1990. He had been an MAA member since 1970. For more on his life click here.

William Beck, 78 died on August 15, 2008. He received his PhD from Purdue University. He taught at Chatham College in Pennsylvania for 35 years. He had been an MAA member since 1952.

Dominick Russo, passed away on August 2, 2008. He had been an MAA member since 1952.

Samuel Wilfred (Will) Hahn, 87 died on July 31, 2008 in Muncie, Indiana. Hahn received his PhD from Duke University. He held teaching positions at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Wittenburg University, Winthrop College, and Hampden-Sydney College before returning to Wittenburg University in 1960 where he remained until his retirement in 1983. Hahn had been an MAA member since 1949. For a more complete obituary click here.

Norman Schaumberger, 79, died on July 10, 2008. He taught at Cooper Union, Columbia University, City College of New York and Bronx Community College. He published over 500 articles with problems and solutions. A scholarship in his honor has been established at Bronx Community College. Donations can be made to: the Dr. Norman Schaumberger Scholarship Fund and sent to 62-59 Douglas Parkway, Douglaston, NY 11362. He had been an MAA member since 1958.

Steve Sigur, 62, died on July 5, 2008, in Atlanta, Georgia, after battling a brain tumor for more than a year. He graduated from Brown University in 1968 with a degree in physics. Sigur spent most of his career teaching mathematics at The Paideia School in Atlanta, Georgia. He was a winner of the MAA's Distinguished High School Mathematics Teaching Edyth May Sliffe Award in 1996 and again in 1997. At MathFest in 2004, in Providence, RI, Sigur was one of the three invited speakers, the first high school teacher anyone could remember in this role. Shortly before his death, he completed work on The Triangle Book(AK Peters), co-authored with John H. Conway of Princeton University. He was due to speak at a session on triangle geometry at MathFest 2008 in Madison. See a future MAA Focus for more on Sigur's life. See also http://www.paideiaschool.org/about_us/steve_memoriam.aspx, which includes interview footage where he discussed his unique and highly effective teaching philosophy, as well as details on how to donate to a fund in his memory. He had been an MAA member since 1993

Hari Shankar, 78 died on June 22, 2008 after complications from surgery. He taught mathematics at Ohio University for more than 30 years. He had been an MAA member since 1964.

Gary Vance, 71 died on June 6, 2008. Vance taught mathematics at Lawrence Tech and also for Livonia Public Schools. He had been an MAA member since 1986. For more on Professor Vance click here.

Jefferson Hartzler, 66, died on June 3, 2008 of cancer. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. He taught mathematics at Pennsylvania State University Harrisburg until retiring in 2006.He had been an MAA member since 1966. For a more complete obituary click here.

Walter Harrington, 91, died on June 2, 2008. Harrington spent most of his career teaching mathematics at Cornell, Penn State University, and North Carolina State University. He also spent time at Allegheny Ballistics Lab as a research associate. He had been an MAA member since 1942. For more on his life click here.

Samuel Kneale, 86, died on May 27 in Baltimore, MD from complications from pneumonia. He earned his PhD from Harvard. Kneale had been an MAA member since 1948.

Donald Lee Pilling, 64, died on May 26 in Bethesda, MD. He was a retired four-star admiral who later became president and chief executive of the consulting firm LMI. Pilling graduated fourth in his class from the Naval Academy in 1965. He was one of the school's first Trident Scholars. Pilling's research dealt with abstractions of partially ordered systems. He received his PhD in 1970 from the University of Cambridge. Pillings had been a member of the MAA since 1964.

Jack Ohm, 74 died on May 24, 2008. He received his PhD from University of California, Berkeley and had been on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Ohm had been an MAA member since 1972.

Vadim Komkov, 88, died May 14 in Jacksonville, FL. He was professor of mathematics at Texas Tech from 1969-1980. He also held positions at the University of Utah, the University of Wisconsin, Florida State University, the University of West Virginia, and Winthrop University in South Carolina. He had been a member of the MAA since 1968.

Gene F. Rose, 90, died on May 8. He was professor emeritus at California State University, Fullerton. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1952. He had been an MAA member since 1944.

Eldon Posey, 87, died on May 7. He was an emeritus professor at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Posey received his PhD from the University of Tennessee in 1954. He had been an MAA member since 1956.

Murray Protter, 90, died at his home of congestive heart failure on May 1. He was a former chair of the mathematics department at the University of California, Berkeley. Protter graduated from the University of Michigan in 1937 and earned his PhD from Brown University in 1946. In 1964 he co-authored with Charles B. Morrey, Jr. the book Calculus with Analytic Geometry: A First Course. It went on to become the second best-selling calculus text at that time in the US. Protter was well known for his research involving maximum principles and partial differential equations. He had been a member of the MAA for 59 years . For more on Protter's life click here.

Donald E. Miller, 67, died on April 13. Miller grew up in Ohio, and graduated in 1962 with a degree in mathematics from Kent State University. He taught math and chemistry at Mogadore (Ohio) High School. In 1965 he returned to graduate school at the University of Notre Dame, and joined the Saint Mary's College (Notre Dame, IN) Mathematics Department in the fall of 1967, where he taught until his death. During his time at Saint Mary's he published many articles and books, including Gambling and Politics, published in 2004. Miller was a member of many professional organizations including the Mathematical Association of America and in 2004 was awarded the Distinguished Service Award for the Indiana Section in recognition of his long service in many capacities, including a term as chair in 1995-96. He was a founding member of the MAA Special Interest Group on Environmental Mathematics, where he served as Associate Coordinator.

David M. Merriell, 90 died on April 11, 2008. He had been an MAA member since 1955.

Michael Golomb, 98, died on April 9, 2008. He obtained his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1938. He came to the United States in 1939 and began his teaching career at Cornell University. In 1942 Professor Golomb moved to Purdue University where he taught until his retirement in 1975. Golomb had been an MAA member since 1943. For more on his life click here.

Edwin Eigel, 75, died April 7 in Bridgeport, CT. Eigel was president emeritus at the University of Bridgeport. He earned his PhD at St. Louis University. He had been an MAA member since 1956. For more on Eigel's life click here.

William L. Duren, Jr., 102, former MAA President, died April 4 in Charlottesville, VA. After college at Tulane University, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1930 and joined the Tulane faculty. Appointed Chairman at Tulane in 1947, he established a Ph.D. program that became a model for other such programs in the South. He worked through the MAA to form the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics, which brought substantial improvements in curricula throughout the country. In 1952-53, as the first Program Director in Mathematics for the NSF, he made grants to regional universities for new Ph.D. programs and funded summer institutes to help faculty members improve their mathematical skills. He was elected President of the MAA in 1954. In 1955 he moved to the University of Virginia as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Upon leaving the Deanship in 1962, he helped form a Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science in the UVa School of Engineering. He was awarded an honorary degree by Tulane in 1959, and in 1967 he received the annual MAA Citation for Distinguished Service to Mathematics. After retirement in 1976, he remained involved with educational issues. On his 100th birthday, he gave a Colloquium lecture in the UVa Mathematics Department. He had been a member of MAA since 1926. For a more complete obituary please click here.

Anne Snow McCarthy, 94, died on April 3 in Belmont, MA. She was the first woman to earn a Masters degree in mathematics from BC Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1937. McCarthy taught math at Mount St. Mary's College in Hooksett, NH before moving on to John Hancock as a chief economist. In 1950 she joined the Cambridge School Department teaching math at both the elementary and secondary levels. She retired in 1977. McCarthy had been an MAA member since 1941. For a more complete obituary click here.

David Wallach, 64, died on March 28. He had been an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Findlay for 24 years. He had been an MAA member since 1985.

Richard C. (Dick) Roberts, 82, professor emeritus at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), died March 27, 2008 in Columbia, Maryland. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Kenyon College and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Brown University. As chair of the mathematics department at UMBC from the inception of the university in 1966 he established graduate programs in applied mathematics and in statistics and built up a department which became known for both teaching and research. He retired in 1991. He was an MAA member for 42 years.

Chester Pinkerton, 93, passed away on March 19, 2008. He had been an MAA member since 1962. For more on his life click here.

Ruth Marie Ketler Deters, 96, a retired mathematics professor at Valparaiso University died March 10, 2008, in Shakopee, MN. She received her B.A. in mathematics at Northwestern University and a M.A. in anthropology and M.S in mathematics at the University of Chicago. She had been a member of the MAA since 1961.

David Gale, 86, a professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, died March 7 at Alta Bates Medical Center in Berkeley following a heart attack. Gale was born Dec. 13, 1921 in Manhattan. He attended Swarthmore College and graduated with a B.A. in 1943, obtained an M.A. from the University of Michigan in 1947, and earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1949. Gale was a puzzle lover who made fundamental contributions to economics and game theory. He had been a member of the MAA since 1955. For a more complete obituary on David Gale click here.

Peter Szüsz, 83, died February 16th in Boston of complications following heart surgery. A survivor of the Nazi labor camps during World War II, he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Budapest and his D.Sci. from the Hungarian Academy of Science, where he was a research fellow from 1950 to 1965. He was a professor of mathematics at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (now Stony Brook University) from 1966 until his retirement in 1994 and had seven Ph.D. students. His principal interests were probabilistic methods in analysis and number theory, diophantine approximation, Fourier series, and the constructive theory of functions. His well received 1992 book written with Andrew M. Rockett on Continued Fractionswas hailed by Ivan Niven as ``... an outstanding addition to the literature of mathematics.'' An accomplished violinist, he studied for many years with Isidore Cohen and enthusiastically played chamber music (as well as bridge and chess) with his many friends.

Raymond F. Kramer, Jr. (1932-2008) died Saturday February 23, 2008 after a brief illness. Kramer was born and raised in Joliet, Illinois, and was a longtime resident of the South Bay. He received his Masters Degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois in 1956, and moved to California to pursue his career. After a brief period at Douglas Aircraft, he did graduate studies at UCLA. Kramer then took a position at Space Technology Laboratories where he remained until his retirement in 1988. During his career he developed important computer models of such things as the thermal heating of spacecraft during reentry. Specifically, he was an expert in developing models employing differential equations for computer solution. Kramer had been a member of the MAA since 1966.

Kenneth Stephen Phelan, 88, died on February 21 in Kihei, Maui. He had been an MAA member since 1950.

Paul Mielke, 87, (1920-2008) died February 3. He graduated from Wabash College in 1942, served in World War II, and earned his Ph.D. from Purdue University in 1951. Following the completion of his doctorate, Mielke returned to Wabash as an assistant professor. In 1952 he took a job as an engineer with the Boeing Corporation in Seattle. In 1957, Mielke again returned to Wabash where--except for leaves of absence--he remained until his retirement in 1985. Mielke served as chair of the department from 1963 to 1978. He had been an MAA member since 1948. For a more complete obituary click here.

Richard D. Anderson, 86, former MAA President and Professor Emeritus from Lousiana State University, passed away on March 4 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He received his PhD in 1948 from the University of Texas at Austin. His advisor was R.L. Moore. Anderson, along with his students, was instrumental in setting up a program on Infinite Dimensional Topolgy at Lousiana State University. He also won the Award for Distinguished Service in 1978. He had been a member of the MAA since 1941.

Ernest C. Schlesinger, 82 passed away on March 3 in New London, Connecticut. Schlesinger came to the US at the age of 14 after he and his family escaped Nazi Germany. He received his PhD from Harvard and began his career as an instructor of philosophy at the University of Washington. He moved on to become an instructor of mathematics at Yale University and an assistant professor of mathematics at Wesleyan University. He joined the faculty at Connecticut College in 1962 and remained there until he retired in 1996. Schlesinger had been a member of the MAA since 1955. For more on his life click here.

Raoul Hailpern, 91, passed away on February 9 in Amherst, New York. Dr. Hailpern had served as the MAA's editorial director for the American Mathematical Monthly, Mathematics Magazine, and The College Mathematics Journal from 1961 to 1985 when he retired. He also oversaw editorial direction for all MAA books. He had been a member of the MAA since 1959.

Michael Irven Ratliff, 63, passed away on February 4 in Flagstaff, Arizona. Dr. Ratliff was a professor of mathematics and statistics at Northern Arizona University. He was responsible for numerous curriculum changes which included developing and directing the Actuarial Science Program in the department. Ratliff received a BS in math and physics from Pacific Union College, a Masters from Colorado State University, and PhD in mathematics from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is survived by his wife Dr. Janet M. McShane, son Nicholas Ratliff, sister Sandra Ratliff, and numerous other family members. He had been a member of the MAA since 1968.

Izaak Wirszup, 93, professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago passed away on January 30 of unknown causes. Professor Wirszup had been a holocaust survivor who warned the US was falling behind Russia in teaching mathematics to children during the Cold War. He developed curricula that stressed creativity and reasoning over learning figures by rote. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1949 and earned his PhD in 1955 from the university. Wirszup had been an MAA member since 1954.

Herbert B. Keller, Professor of Applied Mathematics Emeritus at the California Institute of Technology, passed away on Saturday, January 26, 2008. He was 82 years old. Keller, a native of Paterson, New Jersey, earned his PhD in mathematics from New York University in 1954. After working as a research scientist and associate professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU, he arrived at Caltech in 1965 as a visiting professor. He became a full professor two years later. At Caltech, Keller served as an executive officer for applied mathematics and director of Caltech's branch of the Center for Research on Parallel Computation. He retired in 2000 but remained an active researcher, attending seminars, workshops, and conferences related to his fields of interest. A memorial page has been set up at http://herbertkeller.blogspot.com/.

Roy Dubisch, 90, Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, passed away on January 20 in Sedona, Arizona. Dubisch earned his PhD at the University of Chicago. He taught at several colleges and universities, including Fresno State College, where he also served as department chair before settling at the University of Washington. He was the author of many books on mathematics including The Nature of Number, Introduction to Abstract Algebra, and The Teaching of Mathematics. Dubisch served as editor of Mathematics Magazine from 1964-68. He had been a member of the Association since 1946.

Robert J. Rubin, 81 died on January 18, 2008 from multiple myeloma. He worked as a mathematician and a physicist at the National Bureau of Standards and the National Institutes of Health. For more on his life click here. Rubin had been an MAA member since 1975.

Van A. McAuley, 81 died on January 8, 2008. He was retired from NASA Huntsville. McAuley had been an MAA member since 1986.

2007

Morris Newman, 92, passed away in 2007. Newman joined MAA in 1950. Read more about his life here.

Wilfred Kaplan, 92 died on December 26, 2007. He was professor emeritus of mathematics from the University of Michigan. Kaplan was also heavily involved with the American Association for University Professors serving as the president of the University of Michigan chapter and president of the Michigan AAUP conference during the 1950s and 1960s. For more on Kaplan's life click here.

Ralph Mansfield, 95, passed away on December 17. Mansfield was a retired math professor and a textbook author. He had been a member of the MAA since 1941.

Frances Sullivan, 63, Professor Emeritus at Clemson University, passed away on December 14 after a long struggle with kidney disease. Dr. Sullivan received her PhD from City University of New York. She had been an MAA member since 1980.

Richard Ewing, 61, professor of mathematics at Texas A&M University, passed away on December 5, 2007. He had served as vice president of research since 2000 before returning to teaching in August. Ewing received his PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, and held A&M's Mobil Technology Company Chair in Computational Science and was a distinguished professor of mathematics and engineering. He was a member of the MAA for 21 years. For a more complete obituary click here.

Marjorie Maher, 97 died on December 5, 2007. Maher was a graduate of UC Berkeley. She taught math at Francisco Junior High and Balboa and Lincoln high schools. She had been an MAA member since 1965.

Edward Ebert, 88 died on December 4, 2007 in Macon, Georgia. He studied math at the University of Toledo and went on to get his masters from the University of Iowa in 1941. Ebert began his teaching career at the University of Toledo and moved on to work on weather prediction at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He returned to the University of Toledo in 1953 where he remained until retirement in 1984. For a more complete obituary click here. Ebert had been an MAA member since 1955.

Robert Reisel, 82 Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Statistics at Loyola University Chicago, passed away on November 16, 2007. He was a member of the MAA for 56 years. Following his service during World War II, Bob entered college and received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Northwestern University in 1954. His thesis adviser was Daniel Zelinsky. For the next thirty-eight years, he taught at Loyola, where he advised scores of students who undertook teaching careers in high school or college. His book Elementary Theory of Metric Spaces; A Course in Constructing Mathematical Proofs, published by Springer in 1982, was one of the first transition course texts to appear. For nearly 20 years he volunteered his services as a reader of mathematical and technical material for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. It was while traveling home from a reading session that he suffered the injury that took his life three weeks later.

William Walton (Bill) Hall, Jr., 82, died on November 10, 2007. Hall was a longtime UW-Richland mathematics professor and a member of the MAA since 1969. A graduate of West Point Military Academy, and the University of Illinois, Professor Hall started his teaching career at UW-Richland in 1968, following a distinguished military career that earned him the country's highest non-combat military honor, the Legion of Merit. He retired in 1990. He has given several presentations at the MAA(WI) on four-color map theorem. Professor Hall and his wife Doris continued to reside in Richland Center.

Jasper E. Adams, 65, died on November 9, 2007 in Houston, TX. Adams was a Professor of Mathematics and department chair at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, TX. He had been a faculty member at SFA since 1965. Dr. Adams received his PhD from Texas Tech University in 1971.

Alex F.T.W. Rosenberg, 80, Professor Emeritus from both Cornell and UC Santa Barbara, died October 27, 2007, in his native Germany, after a long illness. He got his PhD in 1951 at the University of Chicago, under Irving Kaplansky, and spent the bulk of his professional life at Northwestern (1952-1961), Cornell (1961-1986), and UC Santa Barbara (1986-1994), publishing about 50 research papers with collaborators including Dan Zelinsky, Samuel Eilenberg, A. C. Zitronenbaum, Jerrold Kleinstein, Gerhard Hochschild, Steve Chase, Roger Ware, Manfred Knebusch, and Eberhard Becker. For many decades, he maintained a high profile in both the AMS and the MAA, serving as Editor of the Proceedings of the AMS (1960-65) and Editor of the American Mathematical Monthly (1974-76). He also served as editor of the Mathematical Problems section in the Monthly. He chaired MAA's Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics in the early 1970s. His 20 PhD students included Vera Pless, Bodo Pareigis, Lindsay Childs, David Dobbs, Bob Morris, Stuart Wang, Tom Craven, Colm Mulcahy and Vicki Powers. Further details, as well as information on a special Cornell University Mathematics Book Fund honoring his memory, may be obtained by clicking here.

Winifred Asprey, 90, died on October 19, 2007. Asprey had been a computer pioneer and professor at Vassar College where she taught for 38 years. She had been an MAA member since 1946. For more on her life click here.

Alexander Mehaffey, 77 died on October 12, 2007 in Vermillion, South Dakota. He earned his PhD from the University of South Dakota. He taught at the University of South Dakota for 42 years and retired in 1995. For a more complete obituary click here.

James Bruening, 58, died on September 9, 2007. Bruening was a Professor of Mathematics at Southeast Missouri State University and Governor of the Missouri Section of the MAA. He received his PhD in 1977 from the University of Missouri at Rolla. He had taught at Southeast Missouri State University since 1985. He had been a member of the Association since 1987.

Kenneth Cooke, 82, died on September 8, 2007 of a brain tumor. Cooke taught mathematics at the University of Washington in Pullman, WA before joining the faculty at Pomona College in 1957. He earned his master's and PhD degrees from Stanford University. His research encompassed two discrete fields of mathematics: delay differential equations and mathematical modeling. For a more complete obituary click here. Cooke had been an MAA member since 1949.

Victor Klee, 81, former MAA President and professor emeritus at University of Washington, Seattle, died on August 18, 2007 in Lakewood, Ohio. Klee specialized in convex sets, functional analysis, analysis of algorithms, optimization, and combinatorics. He wrote more than 200 research papers and posed what came to be known as Klee's Measure Problem and the Art Gallery Theorem. For a more complete obituary click here.

Robert Payton, 78 died on August 15, 2007. Payton studied engineering as an undergraduate and received his PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1959. He did post-doctoral work at the Courant Institute before joining the Research and Advanced Developmen Division at Avco in Wilmington, MA. While teaching evening classes at Northwestern University he decided on an academic career. Payton began teaching mathematics at Adelphi University in 1964 and remained there until his retirement. For more on his life click here. He had been an MAA member since 1977.

Joseph A. Schatz, 83, died on August 10, 2007. He was an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of Houston for 25 years, until he retired in 1998. He received a PhD in 1952 from Brown University with a dissertation on C*-algebras under Charles Rickart. Dr. Schatz taught at Lehigh then Connecticut. He became an applied mathematician at Sandia National Laboratory in 1957, where he solved engineering problems, ranging from inertial stability of space platforms to language parsing of scientific papers. He was known for his research on citation indices (Super-classics of mathematics) and on mathematical logic (The nature of truth). He moved to the University of Houston in 1972, where he was noted for his teaching of mid-life undergraduates, helping them overcome their fear of mathematics. A scholarship for nontraditional mathematics students has been established in his name at the University of Houston. More information and some of his papers are available here. He was a member of the MAA for 58 years.

Atle Selberg, 90, died on August 6, 2007. Selberg was a number theorist who had been a permanent member of the Institue for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ. He was known for his work in analytic number theory, including important results on the zeros of the Riemann zeta function and an elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem. For a detailed obituary visit the IAS site at http://www.ias.edu/newsroom/announcements/view/1186683853.html.

Charles Woodrow, 84, died on July 26, 2007 after a long battle with cancer. Woodrow received his BA from Greenville College, Greenvile, IL, a Master of Divinity degress from Asbury Theological Seminary, and a Master of Mathematics Education from Oklahoma State University. He taught in the Oklahoma public schools for four years before moving on to pastor in churches in Kentucky and Oklahoma. He joint the mathematics department at Austin College in 1959 and remained there until his retirement in 1988. He had been an MAA member for 48 years.

Dwayne Cameron, 60, died on July 23, 2007 of a heart attack. Cameron received his BA in mathematics from Kansas State University in 1969. He taught at Old Rochester Regional HIgh School until his retirement in 2005. He had been an MAA member since 1977. For more on his life click here.

John A. Ewell III, 79, died on July 21, 2007. Professor Ewell received his Ph.D. at UCLA in 1966 where he was a student of Professor Ernst Straus. He was a member of the faculty at Northern Illinois University from 1973 until his retirement in 1998. His research was in number theory and he continued to publish during his retirement. He had been an MAA member since 1973.

Lee Cohen, 44, died on July 16, 2007 of pancreatic cancer. Professor Cohen was educated at Emory University and the University of Virginia. He taught at Hampden Sydney College in Virginia. He was a member of the Association since 1988.

William A. Kirby, 76, Professor Emeritus at Bowling Green State University, died May 23, 2007 in his home in Bowling Green Ohio. He was born in Madison, South Dakota. Professor Kirby attended the University of Wyoming, was a faculty member at Texas Western College, and then received his Ph. D. from the University in 1961. He taught at Bowling Green until his retirement in 1990. He was recognized as an early practitioner of teaching with the Moore method, having taken courses from R.L. Moore at Texas. Kirby was a member of the American Contract Bridge League where he was a silver master.

Deborah Tepper Haimo, former MAA President, died at the age of 85 in Claremont, Calif. on May 17, 2007. Professor Haimo served as MAA President from 1991-92. During her tenure as president she helped reorganize the MAA's committee structure, created the Franklin and Deborah Tepper Haimo award honoring outstanding teaching, and encouraged the participation of women in mathematics at every level and in the MAA. For her full obituary click here.

Alfred B. Willcox, former MAA Executive Director has died at age 81 of complications of pneumonia. There will be a memorial service at Ashlar Village, in Wallingford, Conn., on June 1, 2007, at 10:00 a.m. Affectionately known as "A.B.," Willcox taught at Amherst College, served as Executive Director of the Committee on the Undergraduate Program in Mathematics, and in 1968 became MAA's second Executive Director. For a more complete obituary click here.

George Lang, 64, died on May 9, 2007 following a brief illness. Lang was professor of mathematics at Fairfield University. He received his BS in mathematics from Loyola University, his MS from the University of Dayton, and his PhD from Purdue University. He had been an MAA member since 1964.

Emma Lehmer 100, died in her sleep on May 7, 2007. She earned an M.S. in mathematics at Brown University. Lehmer was a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley for many years. For more on her life click here. Lehmer had been an MAA member since 1962.

John Harvey, retired Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, died suddenly on May 3. He was 72. Professor Harvey was a native of Waco, Texas and started his academic career at Navarro Junior College. He received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Baylor University in 1955, his master's degree in mathematics from Florida State University in 1957 and his PhD in mathematics from Tulane University in 1961. For the complete obituary on John Harvey click here.

Marvin Friedman, 67 died on April 26, 2007. He was professor of mathematics at Boston University. As undergraduate he studied at MIT and he received his PhD from Brandeis University. Friedman was a strong advocate for more mathematics in high school. He had been an MAA member since 1984. For more on his life click here.

Ali Amir-Moez, 88 died on April 25, 2007 at his home in Lubbock, TX. He earned his undergraduate degree in mathematics from the University of Tehran. Upon immigration to the United States he continued his education at UCLA earning both his MA and PhD. He taught mathematics at the University of Idaho, Queens College, Purdue University, University of Florida, Clarkson College, and Texas Tech University. He authored several books as well as over 150 papers and articles. For more on his life click here. He had been an MAA member since 1953.

Paul Joseph Cohen died in Stanford on March 23. Born in 1934, Cohen got his graduate training at the University of Chicago and eventually became a professor at Stanford University. Though he made contributions to analysis and the theory of partial differential equations, he was best known for his development of “forcing,” now a fundamental tool of set theory, and using the new technique to prove that the Continuum Hypothesis and the Axiom of Choice are independent from the axioms of set theory. This ground-breaking work won him the Fields Medal in 1966, and he received many other honors and prizes. FOCUS will have a longer article about Cohen in its August/September issue.

Frank Burk died on March 17. Born in 1942, Burk received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside, in 1969. He taught at California State University, Chico, from 1968 to 2004. Burk was the author of two books, both on the theory of integration. The second, entitled A Garden of Integrals, will be published by the MAA in May.

Dr. David J. DeVries, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Georgia College & State University, died on March 16, 2007. Dr. DeVries was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and earned his B.A. from Calvin College and M.A. and PhD degrees from The Pennsylvania State University. He began his college teaching career at Hobart & William Smith College in Geneva, NY and then moved to Mars Hill College in Mars Hill, NC before coming to GCSU in 1983. He served as chair of the Department of Mathematics at GCSU from 1983-1995 and he continued as a faculty member in the department until his retirement in 2004. Even during his retirement, his love for teaching mathematics and commitment to working with students brought him back to teach on a part-time basis. Dr. DeVries was deeply committed to understanding how undergraduates learn mathematics and was active in the SIGMAA on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics

Elbridge Putnam Vance, 92, passed away on February 18, 2007 in Shelton, WA. Vance received his undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster and his MA and PhD degrees from the University of Michigan. He taught mathematics at Oberlin College from 1943 to 1983. He had been an MAA member since 1940.

James Eells died on February 14 at the age of 80. Eels graduated from Bowdoin College and then from Harvard University. His doctoral work was completed in 1954, under Hassler Whitney. After holding several prestigious positions in the U.S., he moved to the United Kingdom and became Professor of Analysis at the University of Warwick. He was later named the first head of the mathematics group at the International Center of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. His research dealt with harmonic maps, geometric evolutions, and stochastic analysis.

Delbert Walker, 93, passed away on January 29, 2007 in Grangeville, Idaho. Walker received his Master's degree from the University of Nebraska. He began teaching in 1950 at the University of Idaho where he remained until his retirement in 1978. He had been an MAA member since 1952. For a more complete obituary click here.

Walter Brady, 73 died on January 23, 2007 after a long battle with brain cancer. He received a master's in mathematics from Harvard and his PhD from Indiana University. He taught briefly at the University of Connecticut before settling at Connecticut College. He had been an MAA member since 1967. For more on his life click here.

Cynthia Bosio, died on January 15, 2007. She was 53. Bosio was a professor of mathematics at Adrian College in Adrian, MI. For a more complete obituary click here. She had been a member of the MAA since 1985.

Marvin Moore, 98, passed away on January 12, 2007. Moore received his PhD from the University of Illinois, and taught at Auburn University, Indiana University, and Tri State College. He then moved to Bradley University in 1943, serving as department chair from 1958 until his retirement in 1970. Moore had been an MAA member since 1941. For more on his life click here.

2006

Kermit Grover Clemens, 85 died on December 27, 2006. He earned his PhD in 1953 from the University of Oregon. He spent most of his teaching career at Southern Illinois Unviersity Edwardsville before retiring in 1987. He had been an MAA member since 1949.

Dr. Stephen J. Madden, Jr. died on October 7. He was 70. Madden earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from MIT and spent his entire career at MIT and its affliliated institutes. Early in his career, as part of the Apollo missions, he was responsible for determining the precise location of the moon throughout the mission, which allowed the deployment and redocking of the lunar module to the mother ship. He had been a member of the MAA since 1978.

Steven Galovich died suddenly on December 14 at his home in Waukegan, IL. He was 61. Galovich spent twenty years at Carleton College where he taught and served as Associate Dean of Faculty. For last twelve years he taught at Lake Forest College. He received his BA and BS degrees in mathematics from the University of California-Davis, and his PhD from Brown University. In 1988 he won the Carl Allendoerfer Award for expository writing. He had been a member of the MAA for 31 years. For more details on Steve Galovich's career see http://www.lakeforest.edu/admissions/news/news_story.asp?iNewsID=518&strBack=/Default.asp.

Don Kreider, MAA President 1993-1994, died suddenly on December 7. See our obituary from the January 2007 issue of FOCUS.

G. Baley Price,legendary mathematician and former MAA President dies at 101. See our obituary from the December 2006 issue of FOCUS.

Leon Henkin (1921-2006) died on November 1 at his home in Oakland, CA. Born in Brooklyn, NY, Henkin did his doctoral work in Princeton under the direction of Alonzo Church, receiving his PhD in 1947. He worked in logic, but during World War II he did quite a lot of applied work for the war effort, including a stint at Los Alamos. He went to the University of Southern California in 1949, then moved to the University of California at Berkeley in 1953, staying there until his retirement. In addition to his mathematical work and his teaching, Henkin made a mark with his work towards increasing the number of women and minorities in mathematics. He started this work in the 1960s, and he was still at it until recently. In 1990, Henkin received the first Yueh-Gin and Dr. Charles Y. Hu Distinguished Service to Mathematics Award from the MAA. The citation, which appeared in the January 1990 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly, focused on Henkin's contribution to mathematics education and to increasing opportunities for women and minorities in mathematics. Henkin appeared unexpectedly on the cover of the December 2005 issue of FOCUS, when Kristy Sorensen of the Archives for American Mathematics asked for help in identifying the mathematician appearing in a series of photographs. Kristy's report on the responses she received appeared in the March 2006 issue. Henkin was a member of the MAA for 49 years.

Paul R. Halmos (1919-2006), a major figure in twentieth century mathematics, died on October 2 in Los Gatos, California. See our obituary from the November 2006 issue of FOCUS.

George B. Thomas, 92, died on October 31, 2006. Thomas received his undergraduate and graduate degrees from Spokane University and the University of Washington. In 1940 he completed his PhD at Cornell University and went to MIT where he remained until his retirement. Thomas was active in the MAA serving on the Board of Governors and also as first vice-president in 1958-59. For more on his life click here.

James Hickman, 79, died on September 10 of cancer. Professor Hickman had been professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He had been an MAA member since 1957. For more on his life click here.

Zalman Rubinstein of the University of Haifa passed away unexpectedly on September 7, 2006. Born in Warsaw, Poland, on June 14, 1933, he completed his PhD under Mishael Zedek at the University of Maryland in 1962. He taught at Clark University for several years before moving to the University of Haifa in 1972. Rubinstein's area of research was complex analysis, with a special interest in the zeros of real and complex polynomials; he wrote over 30 papers on this subject. Rubinstein was President of the Israel Mathematical Union in 1974-76. He had been a member of the MAA since 1963.

Dov Tamari, 95, died on August 11, 2006 in Jerusalem. Tamari was educated in Vienna, Giessen, and Frankfurt. He completed his doctoral work at the University of Paris. His mathematical work, mostly in logic and related fields, led to several appointments at U.S. institutions. Shortly before his death Tamari had completed a biography of Moritz Pasch, a German mathematician of Jewish faith. He had been a member of the Association since 1963.

Robert L. Wilson died on August 11 in Dublin, Ohio. He was 89. He spent most of his career teaching mathematics at Ohio Wesleyan University. While there he created a new mathematics program that graduated three mathematics PhDs from its first graduating class of nine. Ohio Wesleyan now has awards in both mathematics and computer science that are named after him. After retirement he stayed active in teaching working with 5th graders in a school near his apartment. He was also active in the Ohio section, serving as chair in 1961-62.He was a member of the Association for 59 years.

Frederick Mosteller, 89, passed away on July 23, 2006. Mosteller earned his PhD from Princeton University in 1946 and was hired by Harvard's Social Relations Department. He went on to become professor of mathematical statistics. Mosteller had been an MAA member since 1938. For more on his life click here.

Theodore J. Rivlin, 79 passed away on July 22, 2006. Rivlin earned his PhD from Harvard University in 1953 and accepted his first position as an instructor at Johns Hopkins University. From there he moved to New York University and then on to Fairchild Engine and Airplane Company. In 1959 Rivlin moved to T.J. Watson Research Company where he remained until his retirement in 1994. Rivlin had been an MAA member since 1951. For more on his life click here.

Nathan Mendelsohn, 89, passed away on July 21, of hepatitis C contracted through tainted blood. Professor Mendelsohn taught mathematics at the University of Manitoba for 57 years. He had been an MAA member since 1945. For more on his life click here.

Karen Dee Michalowicz died on July 17, 2006 at the age of 63. She was a nationally recognized mathematics teacher at the Langley School in McLean, Virginia, having received the Presidential Award for Mathematics Teaching in 1994. Karen was especially interested in the use of history in the teaching of mathematics. In that role, she co-directed the NSF-sponsored, MAA administered grant program, Historical Modules for the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics, beginning in 1998. That program involved about twenty-five college and high school teachers of mathematics, who produced such a large amount of material for teaching mathematics using history that the MAA was forced to publish it as a CD. In 1998, she was also invited to participate in the study group on History in Mathematics Education, organized by the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction. After an intensive week of discussions, the group ultimately co-authored the ICMI Study, History in Mathematics Education, which appeared in 2000. Karen was in charge of the group writing the chapter on "History in support of diverse educational requirements — opportunities for change". Over the years, she had amassed a huge collection of mathematics texts from the nineteenth century and earlier, a collection whose contents she enthusiastically shared with students and colleagues in many presentations at national and international meetings. She will be greatly missed by her numerous friends and colleagues in the MAA, the WME, the NCTM, and the Benjamin Banneker Association, among others.

Frank T. Kocher died on July 6, 2006. He was 86. After 34 years at Pennsylvania State University, he had retired in 1991 and moved to St. Petersburg, Florida. In addition to doing mathematics, he was an accomplished pianist. He had been a member of the Association since 1948.

John E. Hafstrom, of Poulsbo, WA, died July 4, 2006. He was 91. He grew up in North Dakota, graduating from what is now North Dakota State University in Fargo. Hafstrom taught high school math and music until Word War II, at which time he joined the Navy and was trained in electronics. Following the war, he earned his Masters Degree and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. He then taught mathematics and headed the Mathematics Department at the University of Minnesota, Duluth for many years. In 1965 he moved to California where he headed the Mathematics Department at Cal State San Bernardino. Hafstrom authored two college-level textbooks, Basic Concepts in Modern Mathematics and Introduction to Analysis and Abstract Algebra. He was active in the Mathematical Association of America and his last request before he died was to ask for his copy of the MAA monograph on irrational numbers.

Irving Kaplansky died on June 25, 2006 after a long and distinguished mathematical career. He was 89. Born in Toronto, Kaplanksy attended the University of Toronto and was part of the winning team in the very first Putnam Competition. He went to Harvard to obtain his PhD; his advisor was Saunders Mac Lane. Beginning in 1945, he taught at the University of Chicago, remaining there until his retirement in 1984, after which he became director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley, CA. He was a leader in American mathematics, particularly in the American Mathematical Society, including a term as AMS president in 1985-86. The AMS awarded him the Leroy P. Steele Prize Career Award in 1989, citing his impact on mathematics in the United States. Kaplansky had been a member of the MAA since 1942. A brief biography can be found online at the MacTutor History of Mathematics site.

Frank Kosier died on June 3, 2006. He was 71. He had been a member of the MAA for 49 years.

L. Gaunce Lewis passed away on May 17, 2006. A student of J. Peter May, he received his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1978. He was hired as an assistant professor by Syracuse University in 1981 after having spent 3 years as a T.H. Hildebrandt Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. He was promoted to Full Professor at Syracuse in 1993. For more details on Gaunce's career see http://math.syr.edu/People/lewis.html.

Katye Sowell died on May 13, 2006. She taught at East Carolina State for 35 years and had been an MAA member since 1959.

Alfred B. Lehman, 75, passed away on May 8. He received his PhD in 1954 from the University of Florida. He went on to work at Tulane, MIT, the Case Institute, Wisconsin, Rensselar, and the Walter Reed Institute. Professor Lehman went to the University of Toronto in 1965 where he spent the remainder of his career. He had been a member of the MAA since 1954. For more on his life click here.

James Woolum, 85, passed away on March 28, 2006.Woolum received his Masters from Stanford University. He had been an MAA member since 1957. For more on his life click here.

Mathukumalli V. Subbarao, 84, passed away on February 15, 2006 in Edmonton, Canada. He received his Master's degree and his PhD from Presidency University, Madras India. His specialty was number theory. He had been a member of the MAA since 1964. For more on his life click here.

George Lorentz, 95, died on January 1, 2006. He received his PhD from Tübingen in 1931. In 1949 Professor Lorentz emigrated to Canada and began teaching in Toronto. He moved to Syracuse University in 1953. In 1968 he accepted a position at the University of Texas at Austin and remained there until his retirement in 1980. He had been an MAA member since 1956. For more on Lorentz's life click here.

 

2005

Raoul Bott, who was well known for his leading work in geometry and topology, died on December 20, 2005 at the age of 82. Born in Budapest, Bott was educated as an engineer at McGill University, then switched to mathematics and got his doctorate from Carnegie-Mellon. Over the years, he held positions at the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Michigan, and finally at Harvard University, where he was a professor for 40 years. Bott's achievements were recognized by way of many awards, including the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize, the AMS Oswald Veblen Prize, and the AMS Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. An extended interview with Bott appeared in the April 2001 issue of the Notices of the AMS and is available online at http://www.ams.org/ams/fea-bott.pdf.

David S. Sanchez, 66, passed away suddenly on December 1, 2005, after teaching at San Antonio College for 33 years. Sanchez served for 13 years as an officer of the Texas Section of the MAA and he served on six Texas state committees which address the teaching of collegiate mathematics. He was a member of the Association for 33 years.

Janet Andersen, 47, professor of mathematics at Hope College died in an automobile accident on November 24, 2005 in Michigan. A very active member of the Association, she ran PREP workshops, was a speaker for Project NExT, worked on several MAA committees, and was co-author of the recent MAA book, Understanding Our Quantitative World.The family has requested that memorial contributions be made into a Mathematics Department Scholarship Fund. These may be sent to Kim Salisbury, Hope College Advancement Office, P.O. Box 9000, Holland, MI 49422-9000. More information can be found in a Hope College press release, online at http://www.hope.edu/pr/pressreleases/content/view/full/7722 .

David Pingree, longtime Professor of History of Mathematics and Classics at Brown University, died on November 11, 2005. He had joined the History of Mathematics Department at Brown in 1971, served as its Chair since the mid-1980s, and later was its sole regular faculty member. During that time, he supervised approximately ten doctoral students. He had planned to retire at the end of the 2005/2006 academic year. Pingree was a leading scholar of the history of exact science (including mathematics, astronomy, astrology, and magic) in the ancient world. His many books and articles are very influential, and the quality of his scholarship was recognized by many academic honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship. Pingree's death raised worries about the future of Brown's History of Mathematics department, which was created in the late 1940s and is the only American research center focused exclusively on the study of ancient science and mathematics. (See, for example, the article in Inside Higher Ed, online at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2005/11/15/histmath.)

Robert F. (Bob) Witte, age 66, died October 3, 2005, following complications related to cancer. Witte was born in Lowden, Iowa, and graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from Iowa State University, and subsequently received an MBA from the Harvard Business School. Witte was a Senior Program Officer at ExxonMobil Foundation. He was a great friend to the MAA and helped to develop and nurture the Project NExT Program (New Experiences in Teaching), a program for new faculty.

Ruth Aaronson Bari, 87, professor emeritus of mathematics at George Washington University, died on August 25. Born in Brooklyn, NY, she earned her bachelor¹s degree in 1939 and her PhD at Johns Hopkins in 1966. She joined the GWU faculty that same year, and remained until her retirement in 1987. Her research work was in graph theory. She was a member of MAA for 38 years.

Hans Samelson, 89, a well-known topologist and differential geometer, died September 22 in Palo Alto. Samelson was a student of Heinz Hopf at the ETH. After coming to the Institute for Advanced Study, he taught at Wyoming, Syracuse, and Michigan before coming to Stanford in 1960, from which he retired in 1986. After retirement he remained active, publishing both new research and historical articles, most notably one on Brunellischi¹s Dome in Florence. Samelson was the author of two popular textbooks, one on linear algebra and one on lie groups and algebras. In 1981-82 he served as Section Chair of the Northern California Section of the MAA.

Serge Lang, 78, well-known number theorist and author of many important mathematics books, died on September 12. Lang received his PhD under Emil Artin, then taught at Columbia and Yale. He received the AMS's Cole Prize in Algebra and also their Leroy P. Steele Prize for mathematical exposition. Lang was a prolific author who wrote textbooks on topics ranging from calculus to the frontiers of research in number theory.

Richard Gorman, 91, died on August 15, 2005. Gorman received his Masters from the University of California, Los Angeles. He taught briefly at Compton College before entering the US Navy. After serving in the Navy he went on to teach at the US Naval Academy where he remained until his retirement in 1979. He had been an MAA member since 1939. For more on his life click here.

James J. Kaput, 63, professor of mathematics at the University of Massachsetts at Dartmouth, died after a jogging accident on July 31, 2005. Kaput was well known for his work on mathematics education. Kaput "was convinced that things like arcade games and hand-held devices were the keys to breaking down mathematical concepts so anyone could understand them." He taught at U Mass Dartmouth for 25 years, received many NSF grants, and helped found SimCalc Technologies. Kaput was a member of the MAA for 28 years.

George and Esther Szekeres both died on August 28, 2005. George was 94, and Esther was 95. They were part of the brilliant group of Hungarian mathematicians of the 1930s which included Paul Turán and Paul Erdös. In the 1940s they moved to Australia and helped invigorate the Australian mathematics research community. George and Esther made significant contributions to number theory and combinatorics, and George also wrote on group theory and relativity.

Paul Emery Thomas, 78, died on June 13, 2005 from complications of Parkinson's disease. Thomas received his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College. He received a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University (Hertford College) where he received his M.A. Thomas began his career at Columbia University as a research associate before moving to the University of California, Berkeley. For more on his life click here. Thomas was a life member of the MAA.

Jack Levine, 97 died on June 9, 2005 in Raleigh, North Carolina. He received his PhD from Princeton University in 1934. In 1935 he began teaching at North Carolina State University where he remained until his retirement in 1976. He continued to teach part time until 1995. He had been an MAA member since 1929. For a more complete obituary click here.

George B. Dantzig, "the father of linear programing," died on May 13, 2005. An extended obituary will appear in the August-September issue of FOCUS.

Edward N. Mosley, age 66, passed away on June 12 after an extended battle with cancer. He taught at Lyon College for 35 years and was a member of MAA for 43 years. Mosley also served as Governor of the Oklahoma-Arkansas Section. He is survived by his wife, Mary Eleanor, a son, John Mosley, and his brother Dr. James Mosley.

Louis Leithold, author of a well-known calculus textbook, died at home on April 29, 2005 from natural causes. He was 80 years old. Leithold taught at Cal State L.A., Phoenix College in Arizona, the Open University of Great Britain, the University of Southern California and, most recently, Pepperdine University. In his 70s, he turned to teaching AP calculus in high schools. He is remembered and respected by AP calculus teachers as a leader and an inspiration. For more on Louis Leithold's life and work see the LA Times obituary at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-leithold8may08,0,4688756.story?coll=la-home-headlines.

Ronald C. Biggers, age 59, died on April 23, 2005 after a stroke. Ron held the distinct honor of being the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in pure Mathematics from the University of Califonia at Irvine. His area of emphasis was algebraic geometry and combinatorial group theory. He taught at many institutions before joining Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA, in 1989. Ron is survived by Celo Biggers, his wife of more than 30 years, and his two daughters. He was a member of the MAA for 32 years.

William Kruskal, 85, passed away on April 21, 2005 in Chicago, IL. Kruskal was an authority on theoretical statistics. He was also the co-developer of a technique that was incorporated into every major statistical package in use today. Kruskal received his PhD in mathematical statistics from Columbia University in 1955. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago in 1950 and became Professor Emeritus in 1990. For more on his life click here. Kruskal had been an MAA member since 1953.

George B. Dantzig (1914–2005), the "father of linear programming," died at home in Palo Alto, CA on May 13. An extended obituary appeared in the August-September 2005 issue of FOCUS.

Saunders MacLane, former president of the MAA from 1951-52, died on April 14, 2005. He was 95. An extended obituary appeared in the August-September 2005 issue of FOCUS.

Professor Kenneth P. Bogart, Professor of Mathematics at Dartmouth College, died in a biking accident in March. Click here for a longer obituary.

H. Martyn Cundy died on February 25, 2005, at the age of 91. His book Mathematical Models, written with A.P. Rollett, was very influential in the young lives of many mathematicians. He taught for many years in Malawi. After returning to England, he settled in Kendal, Cumbria, where he taught in the Open University for several years. He was active mathematically to the end, writing several papers on geometric topics.

Edward L. Stanley, longtime faculty member at Clemson University, died on Sunday, February 20, 2005 at age 97. Stanley was born in Scott County, Tennessee and started his teaching career in a one-room school house in his home county. During the summer, he attended East Tennessee State College, and after sixteen years managed to attend full-time and finish his degree. He then earned a master's degree at the University of Tennessee. He went to Clemson in 1943 and taught there until his retirement in 1972, after which he remained involved in the University, for example by tutoring students. Edward and Virginia Stanley sponsor a continuing scholarship for undergraduate matheamtical science students at Clemson University, and another at East Tennessee University.

Sir Edward M. Wright, known to many mathematicians as the second half of "Hardy and Wright", died on February , 2005 at the age of 98. Born in 1906, Wright was largely self-taught until he got an external degree (taking exams but not attending classes) at the University of London. He then went to Oxford, becoming G. H. Hardy's research student. In 1935, he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Aberdeen, where he stayed until he retired in 1976. Towards the end of his time at Aberdeen, he got involved in administration, becoming, by turns, vice-principal, principal, and vice-chancellor of the University. At the time of his death, he was probably the longest-serving member of the London Mathematical Society. His "An Introduction to the Theory of Numbers," written with G. H. Hardy, is a classic: a book one reads, loves, and remembers, and which has inspired many young mathematicians to choose number theory as their field. He was a member of the MAA for 52 years.

Frank Harary, died at 83 in Las Cruces, NM, on January 4, 2005 after a brief illness. Dr. Harary was widely recognized as the “father” of modern graph theory, a discipline of mathematics he helped found, popularize, and revitalize. His book Graph Theory, written in 1969, had an important role in attracting people to the subject and demonstrating its importance. It is still in print. Harary was educated at Brooklyn College and the University of California at Berkeley, and taught for many years at the University of Michigan before moving to New Mexico State University at Las Cruces. He was a member of the MAA for 58 years.

2004

Anna Henriques, 99 died on November 28, 2004. She received her undergraduate degree from Western College for Women in 1926. She received her S.M degree from the University of Chicago in 1931. In 1933 she was one of six women to receive her PhD from Chicago. In 1933 Henriques went to the Advanced Institute in Princeton, NJ as a member, arriving at the same time that Albert Einstein did.She remained there until 1935 and went on to teach at the University of Nebraska, the University of Utah and finally the University of Santa Fe where she remained until she retired in 1971. She had been a member of the MAA since 1931. For more information on her life click here.

Henry Thomassen, an economist and a longtime member of the American Statistical Association and of the Mathematical Association of America, passed away suddenly May 27, 2004. Most recently, Thomassen was serving as economic advisor to the Georgia governor, a role he fulfilled for more than three decades, spanning the administrations of eight governors. Earlier Dr. T (as he was known to friends and associates) had been a faculty member at Georgia State University, Emory University, the University of British Columbia and the University of Nebraska. Before his years as a university professor, Thomassen, who was born in Calgary, had played hockey professionally and served with the Canadian army in the Korean War. He is survived by Helen Thomassen, his wife of more than 40 years, and their five children He was a member of the MAA for 28 years.

Professor Shiing-Shen Chern, one of the outstanding mathematicians of the twentieth century, died at age 93 in Tianjin, China, on December 3, 2004 at the Nankai Institute that he helped to found on the campus of Nankai University where he received his undergraduate degree in 1934. He received the National Medal of Science in 1975 and the Wolf Prize in 1983/4. He edited a volume on Global Geometry and Analysis in the MAA Studies in Mathematics Series in 1967; his article “Curves and Surfaces in Euclidean Space,” in that volume, was awarded the Chauvenet Prize in 1970. He was a member of the MAA for 55 years. A longer obituary appears in the January 2005 issue of FOCUS.

Murray Klamkin, a long time member of the MAA and one of the original organizers, leaders, and coaches for the American Mathematics Competitions program, died on August 6, 2004 at the age of 83. Klamkin received a Certificate of Merit from the Association in 1978. He was a member of MAA since 1948. A longer obituary appears in the November 2004 issue of FOCUS.

James E. White, founder and director of the Mathwright Library and the principal creative force behind the Mathwright software family, died suddenly and unexpectedly on July 18, 2004. He was 58 years old. White was known for his vision of what could be done in mathematics education through the use of the right kind of technology and for his interest in reaching under-represented minorities.A longer obituary appears in the November 2004 issue of FOCUS.

William Firey, Emeritus Professor at Oregon State University, died on August 15, 2004. Described by friends as a "mathematician of the old school", Firey had been part of the Putnam Questions Committee and a member of the editorial board for the MAA's Spectrum series. He was a member of MAA since 1968.

Howard W. Eves, well-known author and longtime faculty member at the University of Maine, died on June 6, 2004. He was 93. A winner of the Polya Award for his expository writing, Eves wrote an impressive list of successful books, including most recently his Mathematical Reminiscences. One of the founders of the Northeastern Section of the Association, Eves served the MAA in many capacities. He was a member of the MAA since 1942. A longer obituary appears in the November 2004 issue of FOCUS.

John E. Freund, longtime member of the MAA and prolific author of textbooks on Probability and Statistics, died on August 14, 2004 at the age of 83. A passionate educator, he was a member of the MAA since 1949.

Joseph L. Doob, a pioneer in the study of the mathematical foundations of probability theory, died on June 7, 2004 at the age of 94. Doob taught at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1935 until his retirement in 1978.He had been a member of the MAA since 1963.

Elias Y. Deeba died unexpectedly on February 11, 2004 at the age of 54. Deeba was born in Lebanon and came to the University of Houston Downtown in 1983, had numerous publications in numerical systems of non-linear equations, mathematical analysis, general mathematical systems, mathematics education, and fuzzy logic. He had been a member of the MAA since 1979.

Bert Yood died on March 17, 2004 at the age of 87. Yood was still active writing papers. The week before his death, he received offprints of a paper that had just appeared. He had been a member of the MAA since 1981.

Helen P. Beard, 88 died January 4, 2004 in Lynchburg, Va. She taught at Harpur College from 1961 until her retirement in 1982. She had been an MAA member since 1942.

2002

John W. Hogan, 66 died June 5, 2002 after a short illness in Charleston, WV. He received his PhD from Virginia Tech and taught at Marshall University for 29 years. He had been an MAA member since 1958.


This page provides short death notices of interest to members of the MAA. Send notices to inmemoriam@maa.org (MAA).

id: 
4495
News Date: 
Thursday, December 31, 2009
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