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In Memoriam: 2022

Sally Lipsey passed away on November 26, 2022, at the age of 95. She was a professor at Brooklyn College (NY) before she retired. Lipsey was a member of the MAA for 75 years, starting in 1947! More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.

Patricia Clark Kenschaft passed away on November 20, 2022, at the age of 82. Described as “a passionate environmentalist”, she was professor emeritus at Montclair State University and a member of the MAA for 48 years. Kenschaft was the founding chair of the Committee on Participation of Women of the MAA from 1987 to 1993, and she chaired the Committee on Mathematics and the Environment from 2000 to 2004. The New Jersey section of the MAA awarded her the Sr. Stephanie Sloyan Distinguished Service Award in 2012, after she served as Section Governor 2005-08. Additionally, in 2006, she received the Louise Hay Award of the Association for Women in Mathematics for her work “writing about, speaking about, and working for mathematics and mathematics education in the areas of K–12 education, the environment, affirmative action and equity, and public awareness of the importance of mathematics in society”. Kenschaft hosted a live radio talk show called "Math Medley" from 1998 to 2004. For more information about her life and career, see her Wikipedia page, an extensive memorial in a local Montclair paper, and her obituary.

William "Bill" Hassinger passed away on November 3, 2022, at the age of 93. He was a member of the MAA for 52 years. Trained in physics, Hassinger was a supporter of science and mathematics throughout his life. He was the president of a building materials company in North Carolina. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Winfried "Vinny" Just passed away on November 2, 2022, at the age of 64. He was a professor of mathematics at Ohio University and a member of the MAA for several years. Just studied dynamical systems and the applications of mathematics to biology, focusing on COVID-19 before his death. He was memorialized in an article from Ohio University.

Leo J. Alex passed away on October 28, 2021, at the age of 78. He was a professor emeritus at SUNY Oneonta and a member of the MAA for 51 years. Alex served as chair of his department for 24 years. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

William J. Gorman passed away on October 9, 2022, at the age of 84. He was a member of the MAA for 52 years. At Purdue University, Dr. Gorman was a vital and beloved part of the computer science department until he retired in 2018, as described in this tribute.

Kathryn Liese Ainsworth passed away on October 5, 2022, at the age of 91. She taught at the University of Louisville for 20 years and was a member of the MAA for 57 years. More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.

Herbert Dulle passed away on September 29, 2022, at the age of 84. Dulle was a member of the MAA for 11 years, and he was a high school mathematics teacher for over 30 years in Illinois. A tribute to his teaching, including lecture notes from Dulle’s calculus class, was published by one of his students. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

H. Chandler Davis passed away on September 24, 2022, at the age of 96. He was a member of the MAA for 58 years. He was a specialist in linear algebra and operator theory, as well as a significant contributor to numerical analysis and fractal geometry. He is best known as a political activist for human rights who was imprisoned in the 1950’s for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. After his release from prison, Davis joined the faculty at the University of Toronto, where he worked until he retired as a Professor Emeritus in 1992. In the mathematics community, he served an Editor-in-Chief of the Mathematical Intelligencer and as Vice-President of the American Mathematical Society. Significantly more information about Davis’ life and career can be found on his Wikipedia page, tributes from the University of Michigan (who fired him in 1954), the University of Toronto, and Joan W. Scott, as well as articles in Jacobin and The Nation.

Jeremy Kilpatrick passed away on September 17, 2022, at the age of 86. He was a life member of the MAA, holding membership for 59 years. Kilpatrick had retired as Regents’ Professor at the University of Georgia, and he was known internationally for his work in mathematics education. He was one of the named editors for Adding It Up, an influential report from the National Research Council in 2001. Among the honors and awards he received was the NCTM Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Award for Excellence in Mathematics Education from Texas A&M University in 2017. More information about this life and career can be found in this remembrance from NCTM, the start of an interview in a book on leaders in mathematics education, and his obituary. Kilpatrick was also interviewed in a podcast in 2014.

Jean Gregoire passed away on September 11, 2022, at the age of 91. He was a member of the MAA for 73 years! He was an actuary in Canada until his retirement in 2000. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Monty Joseph Strauss passed away on September 9, 2022, at the age of 77. He was an emeritus professor at Texas Tech University and a member of the MAA for 60 years (joining when he was 17). Strauss was the co-author of a calculus text (with Bradley and Smith) and directed an early version of Texas Tech’s South Plains STEM Scholars program. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Ed Sandifer passed away on August 31, 2022, at the age of 70. He was a Professor Emeritus at Western Connecticut State University, retiring in 2009, and a member of the MAA for 29 years. Sandifer was a specialist in the history of Leonhard Euler and he wrote “How Euler Did It”, an online column for the MAA, from 2003 to 2010. These writings were captured in two MAA books. He also completed 37 consecutive Boston Marathons (1973-2009), leading to a remembrance from the Roxbury Road Runners Club and a tribute article before his death entitled “An Eulerian Marathoner”. More information about his career can be found in the citation for the Howard Eves Award that the Northeastern Section of the MAA awarded Sandifer in 2015.

Herbert Kranzer passed away on August 5, 2022, at the age of 90. He was a life member of the MAA, joining when he was 18 and maintaining membership for 72 years! Kranzer was a Putnam Exam Fellow in 1951 and a professor of Mathematics at Adelphi University 38 years. More information about his life can be found in his obituary.

Ben Fusaro passed away on July 25, 2022, at the age of 97. He was a member of the MAA for 66 years, and continued his participation in MAA activities into his 90’s. An applied mathematician, specializing in environmental mathematics, Fusaro is best known as the founder of the Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) in 1985. He was involved in the contest, now known as the MathWorks Math Modeling Challenge, for decades. Fusaro also co-edited Environmental Mathematics in the Classroom (with Patricia Clark Kenschaft), available as a classroom resource from the AMS/MAA bookstore. Among his contributions to the MAA, he organized the SIGMAA on Environmental Mathematics which he chaired for ten years. Significantly more information about his life and career can be found in a tribute published in SIAM News (which includes statements from several of his peers) and his obituary.

Herbert Lyon passed away on July 22, 2022, at the age of 79. He was a member of the MAA for 59 years. Lyon served as a faculty member and academic leader at several institutions throughout his long career, such as Chancellor of Anchorage Community College (Alaska) and Black Hawk College (Illinois). Lyon retired in 2007 as Professor of Mathematics at Black Hawk College. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

William R. Livingston passed away on July 20, 2022, at the age of 81. He was emeritus faculty at Missouri Southern State College and a member of the MAA for 58 years. More information about Livingston’s life and career can be found in his obituary.

Kenneth Var Saunders passed away on July 13, 2022, at the age of 86. He was a member for 23 years. Saunders was a research engineer and an applied mathematician, with a 40-year career in government and industry, including work for Boeing, the U.S Navy, and the RAND Corporation. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Donald Warren Crowe passed away on July 4, 2022, at the age of 94. He was a member of the MAA for 70 years! Crowe was a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, retiring from teaching in 1998. He was known internationally for his work in geometry, and Crowe was the co-author of the widely-read Excursions into Mathematics. More information about his life and career can be found in this memorial from the University of Wisconsin.

Jerry Farrell passed away on July 4, 2022, at the age of 84. He was professor emeritus at Butler University and a member of the MAA for 53 years. Farrell was best known for his work in recreational mathematics and crossword puzzle construction, especially the 1996 "Election Day" crossword in The New York Times. Farrell and his wife Karen helped organize the biannual Gathering for Gardner (G4G) conferences, an event for people connected with Martin Gardner. Much more information about his life and career can be found on a G4G tribute page, his Wikipedia page, and his obituary.

H. Norman Ricker passed away on July 2, 2022, at the age of 81. He was a longtime mathematics teacher at New Canaan High School (CT) and a member of the MAA for 45 years. More information about his life and career can be found in a scholarship announcement in his name, and his obituary.

Nathaniel Chafee passed away on June 23, 2022, at the age of 82. He was an Associate Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology until he retired in 2001 and a member of the MAA for 46 years. More information about his life and career is available in his obituary.

William M. Priestley passed away on June 22, 2022, at the age of 81. He was the Gaston Swindell Bruton Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus at the University of the South (Sewanee) and a life member of the MAA, with continuous membership for 50 years. Priestley was a Fulbright Scholar in 1979 and author of Calculus: An Historical Approach and Calculus: A Liberal Art. In 2006 he received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Southeastern Section of the MAA. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Lawrence (Lang) Carlton Moore, Jr. passed away on May 23, 2022, at the age of 83. He was an Associate Professor Emeritus at Duke University and a member of the MAA for 52 years. Moore had a distinguished research career focused on nonstandard analysis. Moore and David Smith (also of Duke) were well-known in the calculus reform movement for their Project CALC: Calculus as a Laboratory Course text and materials, much which is now part of the Connected Curriculum Project. Included in the materials is a popular module on the SIR model for the spread of disease. Among his contributions to the MAA was his service on the Committee on Technologies in Mathematics Education (CTME). He was also a visiting mathematician for a year. More information about Moore’s life and career can be found in his obituary.

Homer F. Bechtell passed away on May 22, 2022, at the age of 93. He was a Professor Emeritus at the University of New Hampshire after retiring in 1996. Bechtell was a member of the MAA for 66 years! He was the author of The Theory of Groups. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Norman W. Riebe passed away on May 17, 2022, at the age of 92. He was a member of the MAA for 72 years! Riebe was a physicist and a mathematician, and he worked for the Los Alamos National Laboratory early in his career. Later, he was Professor of Mathematics at Arizona Western College for more than 25 years. Riebe was also an ordained minister in the Episcopal Church, after graduating from seminary in the 1950’s. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Ed Dubinsky passed away on May 8, 2022, at the age of 87. He was a member of the MAA for 38 years, and served the MAA many ways, including as Second Vice President of MAA (1997-2000), chairmanship of MAA Task Force on Publishing Educational Materials and the MAA Task Force on Special Interest Groups, a member of the MAA Committee on Publications. He also formed and was the first chair of the Joint AMS/MAA Committee on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education (CRUME), to mention a few. Ed taught mathematics at many universities, including the University of Michigan, the University of Sierra Leone, University of Ghana, Tulane University, Purdue University, Georgia State University, and was a Director of the Institute for Retraining in Computer Science (IFRICS). He received an Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher award at Purdue University and a Certificate of Appreciation by the MAA for contribution in Mathematics Education. Ed was well known for developing the APOS Theory, an extension of the Piagetian theory to learning of undergraduate mathematics. He was also instrumental in founding of Research on Undergraduate Mathematics Education (RUME), the first Interest Group of MAA. More information about Ed’s contribution to undergraduate mathematics education can be found in this report on the formation of the MAA RUME SIGMAA.

Georgia Benkart passed away suddenly on April 29, 2022, at the age of 74. She was an Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the MAA for 36 years. Benkart was internationally known for her research in Lie algebras, structure of algebras, quantum groups, representation theory and combinatorics. She was a 2001-02 MAA Polya Lecturer, gave an AMS-MAA Invited Hour Address in 1994 on algebra “told in Dickensian fashion”, and served on several MAA committees. After her retirement from teaching in 2008, Benkart continued her service to the profession as AWM President (2009-2011) and Associate Secretary of the AMS (2010-2020). During this time, she led research groups of early career mathematicians at the Banff research station and MSRI. She was also known for significant contributions to helping women know they belong in mathematics. Substantial information about her life and career can be found in a memorial statement from the University of Wisconsina recent article about her research accomplishments in the AMS Notices, her Wikipedia page, and her obituary. In addition, MSRI has collected several tributes to Benkart's life and legacy.

Thomas V. Wencewicz passed away on April 27, 2022, at the age of 79. He served as a Professor of Mathematics at Southeast Missouri State University for 42 years and was a member of the MAA for 55 years. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Daniel Anderson passed away on April 24, 2022, at the age of 73. He was a Full Professor at the University of Iowa and a member of the MAA for 52 years. Anderson was known for his research in commutative algebra, particularly factorization in commutative rings, publishing over two hundred papers in his career. In 2004, he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from President George W. Bush. He was also a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. More information about Anderson’s life and career can be found in this memorial from the University of Iowa’s mathematics department and his obituary.

Harry Lucas passed away on April 18, 2022, at the age of 90. A member of the MAA for 23 years, he was the chairman of the Lucas Petroleum Group in Texas. A generous proponent of the Inquiry Based Learning (IBL) methods that he learned at the University of Texas, Lucas created the Educational Advancement Foundation to promote IBL, helped fund IBL centers at four institutions, and provided funding MAA Project NExT participants over the years. More information about his life and career can be found in a remembrance in MAA Focus by Michael Starbird, and an obituary.

Jerry Becker passed away on April 16, 2022, at the age of 85. He was a member of the MAA for 40 years. Becker was an active member of the faculty as a professor at Southern Illinois University up until his death, and he was internationally known for his expertise in mathematics education. Among his service to the profession during his career, Becker was on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) board of directors and as president and as a board member of the School Science and Mathematics Association. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary (which includes a tribute wall) and a remembrance from SIU.

Robert J. Betts passed away on April 18, 2022, at the age of 69. He was a member of the MAA for five years, and more information about his career can be found on this page.

Mohamed M Azzedine was a member of the MAA for 31 years, and his death was reported to the MAA in June 2022. Azzedine was born in April 1941 and lived in Paris.

Douglas R. Stocks passed away on March 6, 2022, at the age of 89. He was associate professor emeritus at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and a life member of the MAA, with continuous membership for 67 years. More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.

Steven Lay passed away on March 1, 2022, at the age of 77. He was a Professor of Mathematics at Lee University (TN) and a member of the MAA for 54 years. Lee authored or co-authored several undergraduate mathematics texts, including a well-known linear algebra text with his brother David Lay. More information about his life and career is available in a remembrance from Aurora University and his obituary.

William A. Lewis passed away on February 24, 2022, at the age of 90. He was a member of the MAA for 40 years, and a brief obituary is available.

C. Bradley Tashenberg passed away on February 18, 2022, at the age of 79. He was a member of the MAA for 29 years. Tashenberg was the founder of Bradmark whose flagship product is a leading database utility. More information about his career is available, and memories from friends and family of Tashenberg can be found in his obituary.

Evelyn Wantland passed away on February 4, 2022, at the age of 104. She was a member of the MAA for 72 years! Wantland held emeritus status at Illinois Wesleyan University, retiring in 1976. More information about her life and career can be found in her obituary.

Charles Traina passed away in January 2022, at the age of 71. He was a Professor of Mathematics at St. John’s University (NY) and a member of the MAA for 51 years. His research interests were group theory and measure theory, and he wrote several book reviews for the MAA.

John Selden passed away on January 8, 2022, at the age of 87. He was a life member of the MAA, holding membership for 61 years. Selden taught mathematics at many universities, including the University of Kentucky, Bayero University (Nigeria) where he served as Head of Department and Dean of Science, and Tennessee Technological University. John Selden was known for his expertise and interest in undergraduate mathematics education, in collaboration with his wife Annie Selden. In 2004, the MAA Board of Governors approved the MAA's Annie and John Selden Prize for Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education “to honor individuals with a significant record of published research in mathematics education in the first 10 years of their careers in mathematics education”. John Selden was active with the MAA SIGMAA on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education, and he served on the MAA’s Committee on the Profession and the College Mathematics Journal board. More information about his life and career can be found in this brief profile from the MAA and his obituary.

Robert (Bob) Katz passed away on January 5, 2022, at the age of 99. He was a member of the MAA for 64 years. Katz taught at various institutions including Tufts University and Rockport High School (Massachusetts). More information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.