Jean-Claude Evard passed away on December, 2021, at the age of 79. During his career, he taught at Western Kentucky University and a member of the MAA for 32 years. Evard’s passing was noted in local media due to his fame as Bowling Green (KY)’s “Running Man”.
Richard F. Messalle passed away on December 19, 2021, at the age of 79. He was a member of the MAA for 56 years and a career civil servant working for the US Navy at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Potomac MD. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Mark Pankin passed away on December 17, 2021, at the age of 76. He was a member of the MAA for 51 years. Pankin’s career included a postdoc appointment at Marshall University, employment at the Mathtech consulting firm, and investment advising. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Nicholas R. Baeth, professor of mathematics passed away on December 11, 2021, at the age of 43, after a brief struggle with cancer. He was a professor at the University of Central Missouri for 13 years and then at Franklin & Marshall College for 3½ years. Baeth was a member of the MAA for 25 years. His passion was teaching and doing research with undergraduates, and he was a specialist in algebra. Baeth was a member of the 2005 class for Project NExT, and served on the Merten M. Haase Prize committee. More information about his life and work can be found in his department’s memorial statement, these remembrances, and his obituary.
John Wetzel passed away on November 29, 2021, at the age of 89. He was Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois. A generous supporter of the MAA, a member of the Icosahedron Society, and a member of the MAA for 69 years! Wetzel received two MAA awards for expository writing (shared with co-authors): the Ford Prize in 2005 and the Pólya Prize in 2007. More information about his life and career can be found in a remembrance from the University of Illinois and his obituary.
Shirley McBay passed away on November 27, 2021 at the age of 86. McBay’s career included fifteen years at Spelman College as a faculty member and administrator, five years with the National Science Foundation, and ten years as the dean of student affairs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In all of these roles, she was known as a “trailblazing Black mathematician [who] fought to bring more students from underrepresented groups into science and engineering fields”, as described in MIT News. After her work at MIT, McBay founded and was president of the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network, until she retired in 2016. She was also the first African American to receive a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia, and after her passing, the University of Georgia's Science Library was renamed after her. Substantial more information about her life and career can be found in a retrospective from the University of Georgia, a tribute from Spelman College, and her Wikipedia page.
Robert Kaplan passed away on November 11, 2021, at the age of 88. Kaplan, who taught at Harvard, was a member of the MAA for 26 years. He and his wife Ellen are best known for pioneering The Math Circle in the United States in the 1990’s, co-curricular workshops featuring open-ended, problem-based mathematics that students deeply explore together. (A sample video is available.) Robert and Ellen Kaplan were the authors of several well-received books in mathematics education, including The Art of the Infinite and Out of the Labyrinth. More information about his life and career can be found in a remembrance from Prof. Oliver Knill, a tribute by Instituto TIM (Brazil), a 2003 interview in The Guardian, and a 2001 interview in Cabinet.
Merrilee Helmers passed away in November 2021, at the age of 75. She was an Emerita Professor at California State University, Fresno, retiring in 2007. Helmers was a member of the MAA for 37 years.
Arthur Mattuck passed away on October 8, 2021, at the age of 91. He was emeritus professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (retiring in 2010). Mattuck was a member of the MAA for 71 years, starting in 1950! A specialist in algebraic geometry, Mattuck devoted the latter half of his career to the undergraduate program at MIT, including the design of their calculus sequence. More information about his life and career can be found in an article from MIT News and his obituary.
Franklin (Frank) Demana passed away on September 29, 2021, at the age of 82. He was professor emeritus at The Ohio State University and a member of the MAA for 37 years. In a lifetime achievement award given to Demana in 2015, the citation from the NCTM described his “profound effect on mathematics instruction on both a national and an international level,” for the textbooks written by him and his colleague and friend Bert Waits. Demana and Waits were on the vanguard of using graphing calculators and computers in the teaching and learning of high school and college mathematics. Demana was a founder of Teachers Teaching with Technology (T3), which is now a worldwide community. More information about Demana’s life and career can be found in this NCTM biography with Bert Waits, and his obituary.
Charles Cable passed away on September 16, 2021, at the age of 89. He was a Professor Emeritus at Allegheny College after he retired in 1996, and a member of the MAA for 60 years. Cable led the mathematics department at Allegheny College for twenty years, and he was known as an expert in graph theory. In 2005, he received the Meritorious Service award from the Allegheny Mountain Section of the MAA. This service included serving terms as Chairman, and also Governor, of the Allegheny Mountain Section, serving as an Associate Editor of MAA FOCUS, and instituting a session at the annual Section meeting for undergraduate students to present research talks. He was also a key leader in establishing student chapters of the MAA. Further information about his life and career can be found in his obituary, posted by Allegheny College.
Gerald (Jerry) Heuer passed away on September 14, 2021, at the age of 91. At Concordia College (Minnesota), he was Professor Emeritus and Mathematician in Residence from 1995 until his death. Heuer was a member of the MAA for 66 years and had a strong interest in mathematics competitions. From 1998-1990, he was director of the training session for the USA Team in the International Mathematical Olympiad, as well as leader of the IMO’s USA delegation. Heuer also served on the Questions Committee for the Putnam Competition and as a grader. Since retirement, he has created problems for regional intercollegiate mathematical competitions, including the MAA North Central Section Team Competition, now named after him. For information about Heuer’s life and career can be found in his obituary.
John Driscoll passed away on September 16, 2021, at the age of 85. He was a professor at Marymount Manhattan College until he retired, and a member of the MAA for 21 years. Driscoll, photographed teaching in 1967 and then in the early 1970’s, was also a Woodrow Wilson fellow at the University of Chicago. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Elaine Ann Kasimatis passed away on September 7, 2021, at the age of 69. When she died, she was an active faculty member at CSU Sacramento, working there for over 30 years. Kasimatis was a member of the MAA for 36 years. An expert in mathematics education, Kasimatis was one of the three co-creators of the innovative “College Preparatory Mathematics: Change from Within” program. In 2021, she was awarded the MAA’s Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.
Carlton J. Maxson passed away on September 1, 2021, at the age of 85. He was a member of the MAA for 60 years and retired with Emeritus status from Texas A&M University in 2002. Maxson wrote a remembrance of being a student of Dov Tamari at SUNY-Buffalo, and more information about Maxson’s life and career can be found in his obituary.
Stephen B. Maurer passed away on August 25, 2021, ten days past his 75th birthday. He was Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at his alma mater, Swarthmore College since 2017 after teaching there since 1979. Maurer was a member of the MAA for 54 years and his involvement with the MAA included chairmanship of the MAA Committee on the American Mathematical Competitions (1981-87), co-chair of the MAA Notes Editorial Board, member of the Committee on Books and the Classroom Resource Materials Editorial Board. Maurer was an outstanding educator; for his contributions to the field of education he was given the Presidential Award by the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges in 1985. He was also an advocate of good writing in Mathematics; for his expository writing he received the Allendoerfer Award of the MAA in 1981. More information about his life and career can be found in a the American Mathematical Association of Two-Year Colleges in 1985. He was also an advocate of good writing in Mathematics; for his expository writing he received the Allendoerfer Award of the MAA in 1981. More information about his life and career can be found in a from Swarthmore College and an obituary.
Charles J. Stuth passed away on August 23, 2021, at the age of 89. He was a member of the MAA for 66 years! Stuth retired from Stephens College (Missouri) in 1995. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Genevieve M. Knight passed away on August 19, 2021 at the age of 82. Knight was nationally known for her work as a mathematics educator at historically Black colleges and universities. She taught for several years at Hampton University (Virginia) and continued her career at Coppin State University. Knight was presented with the Outstanding Faculty Award for Mathematics and Mentoring of Minority Youth from the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. In 1996, she was named the Wilson H. Elkins distinguished professor for the University of Maryland System. Knight was an emeritus faculty at Coppin State University and a member of the MAA for 60 years. During her career, she served on several MAA committees, including the Committee on the Participation of Women and the Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics. For much more information about her life and career, see the citation from the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, her Wikipedia page, biographical information on the MAA website, a video of her memorial service, reflections published in MAA FOCUS, and her obituary in the Baltimore Sun.
Carole Lacampagne passed away on August 5, 2021, at the age of 87. She was a member of the MAA for 37 years. Lacampagne taught at Northern Illinois University and George Washington University, and for the U.S. Department of Education, she was the Director of the National Institute on Postsecondary Education, Libraries, and Lifelong Learning. She also served as Director of the Mathematical Sciences Education Board at the National Academies of Science. Lacampagne was very active in the MAA, including serving as the first Tensor Summa director from 2007 to 2012, and on several committees. More information about her career can be found on her Wikipedia page.
Eliot Tanis passed away on July 22, 2021, at the age of 87. He was an emeritus professor at Hope College (Michigan) and a member of the MAA for 56 years. A specialist in statistics, he was the co-author of the textbook Probability and Statistical Inference. For the MAA, he served the Michigan Section as chairperson (1976-77) and section governor (1989-92). He received a teaching award in 1992 and a distinguished service award in 1996 from the Michigan section. More information about his life and career can be found in a remembrance from Hope College.
Patrick J. Leonard passed away on July 17, 2021. He was a life member of the MAA, maintaining membership for 73 years! Leonard was a mathematician and physicist for the U.S. Department of Defense for over 40 years, including work as a mathematician for the U.S. Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, the U.S. Air Force Cambridge Research Center, and Watertown Arsenal. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Carol Ulsafer passed away on July 16, 2021, at the age of 80. She was a tenured faculty member at North Central College (IL), but taught at the University of Montana for over a decade before she retired. Ulsafer was a member of the MAA for 53 years. More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.
Thomas P. Kilkelly passed away on July 6, 2021, at the age of 73. He was a high school mathematics teacher, primarily at St. Thomas Academy and Wayzata High School, in Minnesota. A member of the MAA for 18 years, Kilkelly served three years on the MAA Board of Governors as Governor-at-Large for High School Teachers. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Carol Crawford passed away on July 1, 2021, at the age of 69. After nearly 30 years at the Naval Academy (Annapolis), she was named Professor Emerita, achieving the rank of Full Professor of Mathematics. Crawford was a member of the MAA for 33 years and served as an Associate Editor for the American Mathematical Monthly. She was known for her research in robotics, artificial intelligence and computer vision and was selected as a Fellow of the Institute for Combinatorics, Winnipeg, Canada. More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.
Thomas Wysmuller passed away on June 29, 2021, at the age of 77. He was a member of the MAA for 38 years. A meteorologist by training, Wysmuller worked for the Royal Dutch Weather Bureau, NASA, Pratt & Whitney, and a variety of insurance companies. He also gave lectures worldwide on his conservative analysis of climate change. More information about his life and career can be found in a remembrance from his family, a profile from “DeSmog”, and his obituary.
Elinor Evenchick Berger passed away on June 5, 2021, at the age of 78. She was a Professor of Mathematics at Columbus State University until she retired in 2000 and a member of the MAA for 62 years. More information about Berger’s life and career can be found in her obituary.
Jack Pollin Jack Pollin passed away on May 26, 2021, at the age of 99. He was a member of the MAA for 52 years. Pollin served the US Army throughout his life, and as a Professor of Mathematics, he was Head of the Mathematics Department at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, for 11 years. More information about his life and career can be found in an article about his granddaughter graduating from West Point, related photographs, and his obituary.
Andrew Sterrett passed away on May 22, 2021, at the age of 97. He was a member of the MAA for 72 years! Sterrett, Professor Emeritus of Mathematical Sciences at Denison University, was very active in the MAA, including service as interim associate director for publications. In 1989, he received the MAA’s Meritorious Service Award. Sterrett was the editor of two well-known books: Using Writing to Teach Mathematics and multiple editions of 101 Careers in Mathematics. He was also a member of the MAA’s Icosahedron Society, for his extraordinary generosity, and a room is named after him at the MAA headquarters in Washington, DC. More information about Sterrett’s life and career can be found in an article describing his receipt of the French Legion d’Honneur award, a feature article from Denison University, and his obituary.
Marion Walter passed away on May 9, 2021, at the age of 92. She was Professor Emerita of Mathematics at the University of Oregon. Walter was a member of the MAA for 65 years! She was respected internationally as an expert in preparing prospective elementary school teachers to teach mathematics, and was the author of several books including The Art of Problem Posing (with Stephen Brown) and The Magic Mirror Book, which teaches children about symmetry. In addition, she is known for “The Marion Walter Theorem”, or “Marion’s Theorem” deals with the area of hexagon under certain conditions. Walter’s photographs of American mathematicians are available at the Briscoe Center for American History. More information about her life and career can be found in a remembrance from the University of Oregon, reflections from the president of Simmons University, a rememberance from the AWM, her Wikipedia page, and her obituary.
Edward P. Merkes passed away on April 25, 2021, at the age of 92. He was a member of the MAA for 72 years! A specialist in analysis, Merkes was an emeritus professor at the University of Cincinnati and served on the MAA Classroom Recources Editorial Board. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Roseanne M. Ferdico passed away on April 17, 2021, at the age of 71. An MAA member of 38 years, Ferdico was an information technology specialist in the at New York Harbor Healthcare System until she retired. Remembrances are published with her obituary.
Michel Ossesia passed away on March 30, 2021, at the age of 91. He was a member of the MAA for 66 years and a retired professor at Clarion University. Brief information about his life can be found in his obituary.
Robert Michael “Mike” Nelson, passed away on Wednesday, March 24, 2021, at the age of 79. An alumnus of Wesleyan College in West Virginia, he worked for the United States Postal Service, and he was a member of the MAA for 44 years. Information about his life can be found in his obituary.
Heinrich Guggenheimer passed away on March 4, 2021, at the age of 96. He was an emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota and a member of the MAA for 59 years. Guggenheimer contributed to research in differential geometry, topology, and algebraic geometry, and he was also an expert on Jewish sacred literature. More information about his life and career can be found in a remembrance by Jerold Levoritz, and Guggenheimer’s Wikipedia page.
Eleanor Green Dawley Jones passed away on March 1, 2021, at the age of 91. She was Professor Emerita at Norfolk State University (Virginia) and a member of the MAA for 67 years. Jones was one of the first African-American women to achieve a Ph.D. in mathematics, and she served on the AWM Executive Committee for several years in the 1990’s. She also received the National Association of Mathematicians Distinguished Service Award after serving as its vice president. For the MAA, Jones was a member of the Board of Governors from 1989-94. For more information about her life and career, see an extensive piece in the AWM Newsletter, and also her obituary.
Nathaniel Dean passed away on February 19, 2021, at the age of 65. During his career, after working several years for Bell Labs, he was a professor at Rice University, Texas Southern University and Texas State University, retiring from TSU in 2016. Dean was a member of the MAA for 13 years, serving on the Board of Governors, the Committee on Minority Participation in Mathematics, the College Mathematics Journal Editorial Board, and other committees. He served as President of the National Association of Mathematicians (NAM) and he received NAM’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Dean was an expert graph theory, graph algorithms, parallel computing, and data visualization. More information about his career can be found on his Mathematically Gifted and Black page and on his Wikipedia page.
Isadore Singer, passed away on February 11, 2021, at the age of 96. A member of the MAA for 46 years, Singer was an Emeritus Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. Singer, a co-founder of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) at Berkeley, was well-known for his seminal work at the intersections of analysis, topology, differential equations, and physics, leading to results such as the famous Atiyah–Singer index theorem. He was the recipient of many awards, including the Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the National Medal of Science and the Abel Prize. More information about his life and career can be found in a news release from MIT, an obituary in the New York Times, a remembrance from John Baez, and his Wikipedia page.
Sidney Kung passed away on February 6, 2021, at the age of 89. He was a professor at Jacksonville University and a member of the MAA for 52 years. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Mary F. Neff passed away on February 3, 2021, at the age of 91. She was Professor Emeritus at Emory University and a member of the MAA for 39 years. Earlier in her career, Neff was the first woman faculty member in the Mathematics Department at John Carroll University. More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.
Lida K. Barrett, past MAA President, passed away on January 28, 2021, at the age of 93. She was a faculty member and senior administrator at several universities, including Mississippi State University, where she was Dean of Arts and Sciences. Barrett was a member of the MAA for 66 years and served as President 1989-1990. In 2008, she received the MAA’s Gung and Hu Award for Distinguished Service to Mathematics to recognize her contributions, including serving on the MAA’s Audit and Budget Committee for five years, initiating and enhancing programs to promote the interest of under-represented groups, promoting a stronger focus on K-12 mathematics and science education by the National Science Foundation, and serving as the MAA’s second female President. She was also a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and the Association for Women in Mathematics. Extensive information about her life and career can be found in her Gung and Hu citation, a 2006 interview with Kenneth Ross, a remembrance published in MAA FOCUS, and her obituary (written by her daughter).
John Alden Thorpe passed away on January 18, 2021, at the age of 84. He was a member of the MAA for 66 years. An author of books on elemental topology and geometry, differential geometry, and linear algebra, Thorpe held faculty positions during his career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Haverford College and SUNY-Stony Brook. He was a dean at SUNY-Buffalo and provost of Queens College (CUNY), and Thorpe was a director at the National Science Foundation. The final role in his career was executive director of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Wilbur Lee Smith one of the first Black Ph.D’s in mathematics in the United States, passed away on January 23, 2021, at the age of 79. Smith was a long-time professor and chair of the mathematics department at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He was a member of the MAA for 53 years. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.
Michael Botsko passed away on January 3, 2021, at the age of 77. He was a professor of mathematics at St. Vincent College (PA) for 50 years and a member of the MAA for 36 years. Botsko was the author of a textbook on real analysis. Photos from his retirement party from St. Vincent are available, as well as a brief obituary.
Hubert (Hugh) Chrestenson passed away on January 2, 2021, at the age of 93. He was a member of the MAA for 71 years! Chrestenson was a Professor of Mathematics Emeritus at Reed College, following his retirement in 1990. He was best known for his work on Walsh functions. Some of his children and grandchildren followed him into the mathematics profession. More information about his life and career, including memories from students, can be found on his obituary page.
Robert H. Thompson passed away on January 10, 2021, at the age of 96. He was a member of the MAA for 73 years! Thompson was a Professor of Mathematics at Sterling College from 1947-1967 and at Washburn University (Kansas) from 1967-1989, where he was an emeritus associate professor. He served as secretary and treasurer for the Kansas section of the Mathematical Association of America. More information about his life and career can be found in an announcement of a scholarship in his name, and his obituary.
Robert B. McFadden passed away in 2021, at the age of 86. He was a professor emeritus at the University of Louisville and a member of the MAA for 60 years. During his career, McFadden also taught at Queen’s University Belfast and Northern Illinois University, and he served as president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. More information about his life can be found in a feature story about McFadden and his wife.