In Memoriam: 2013

Paul Sally passed away on December 30, 2013, at the age of 80. He was a professor at the University of Chicago and a member of the MAA since 1966. Sally was known for his contributions to harmonic analysis and his deep involvement in mathematics education. He received the MAA Deborah and Franklin Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics in 2002, and the inaugural AMS Award for Impact on the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics in 2014 (posthumously). Extensive information about his career and impact on students of all ages were published by The University of Chicago, the Chicago Tribune, and The Boston Globe.

Arthur Dickinson passed away on December 5, 2013, at the age of 76. He was a professor at the Florida Institute of Technology, and a member of the MAA since 1983. He was a member of the History of Math SIGMAA. His obituary can be found here.

Heinrich Mantel passed away on November 20, 2013, at the age of 80. Mantel was a mathematical statistician for the U.S. government, and a member of the MAA for 17 years. His obituary is available online.

Douglas Radford Shanklin passed away on November 12, 2013, at the age of 82. He was a professor at the University of Tennessee and a member of the Marine Biology Laboratory (MBL). Shanklin was a professor of pathology, and he firmly believed in the collegiality of medicine, belonging to many organizations dedicated to the advancement of science and medicine. He was a member of the MAA since 1997. An extensive discussion of his career can be found on the page published by asip.org, and a citation by the MBL.

Balbir Singh died on October 24, 2013. He was a member of the MAA since 1979 and lived in California. A tribute page can be found here.

Neil G. Smith passed away on October 1, 2013, at the age of 75. He was a member of the MAA since 1967. More information about his life can be found in his obituary.

Marcia Ascher passed away on August 10, 2013, at the age of 78. She was a professor at Ithaca College and a member of the MAA since 1962. Ascher was known as a pioneer in the study of ethnomathematics, beginning with a study of Inca quipus published in the book Code of the Quipu in 1981 and as one of several case studies in her best known book Ethnomathematics: A Multicultural View of Mathematical Ideas. See also this article from Mathematics Magazine and her book Mathematics Elsewhere. Further information about Ascher’s life and career can be found in her obituary.

Harley Flanders passed away on July 26, 2013, at the age of 87. He was a member of the MAA since 1946, received the MAA's Lester R. Ford Award in 1969, and between 1966-1973 he served as Associate Editor and later as Editor-in-Chief of the MAA’s American Mathematical Monthly. During his career, he held academic positions at many universities, including Berkeley, Purdue, and Michigan. Flanders was the author of the calculus software MicroCalc, and he accepted the NCRIPTAL/EDUCOM Distinguished Software Award in 1987 and 1989. More information can be found in his obituary.

Maria Steinberg passed away on July 7, 2013, at the age of 93. She was professor emerita at California State University – Northridge, and a member of the MAA since 1951. An extensive description of Steinberg’s life and career can be found here. In addition, Steinberg’s husband Robert Steinberg was also an MAA member, and he passed away in 2014. More information about Maria Steinberg can be found in the links in her husband’s citation.

Tom Fryett passed away on July 3, 2013, at the age of 87. He worked at Boeing, United Hydraulics and Eaton Corporation. He was a member of the MAA for ten years. His obituary can be found here.

Yousef Alavi passed away on May 21, 2013, at the age of 85. Upon completing his PhD in mathematics at Michigan State University in 1958, he joined the faculty at Western Michigan University and taught for 38 years before retiring in 1996. He was a member of the MAA for 55 years. Alavi was a founding co-editor of the Michigan Section MAA Newsletter and Governor of the Section from 1977-1980 and 1986-86. He was the first winner of the Section’s Distinguished Service Award, and the first Michigan winner of the MAA Meritorious Service Award. Further information about his life and career can be found in his obituary and in a tribute from the Michigan MAA.

Seymour Kass passed away on April 12, 2013, just shy of his 87th birthday. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Massachusetts – Boston, and a member of the MAA since 1957. Read more about his life here.

Lyman John Wilmot passed away in April 2013, at the age of 75. He was one of the first faculty members at the College of Lake County (Illinois) and a member of the MAA since 1975. Wilmot was noted in The Daily Illini when he was an undergraduate. Read his obituary.

Mary Ellen Rudin passed away on March 18, 2013, at the age of 88. She was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a member of the MAA since 1952. Rudin was known for her influential work in topology, was a student of R. L. Moore, and was elected to the inaugural class of AMS Fellows. Prof. Rudin was the MAA Hedrick Lecturer in 1979, and served on the MAA Board of Governors as well as numerous other MAA committees. More information about her career, including links to remembrances, can be found on the MAA news page, as well as her Wikipedia page, an article in the AMS Notices, pages published by the University of St. Andrews and The Aperiodical, and a memorial resolution written by her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin. She was identified several times in the Paul R. Halmos “Who’s That Mathematician” collection (page 25, page 44, and page 46). Her husband was mathematician Walter Rudin.

Jerry Pietenpol passed away January 26, 2013, at the age of 77. Pietenpol was an associate professor at Maryville College until his retirement in 2000, and a member of the MAA for 57 years. For his work leading the computer science program at Maryville, the Jerry L. Pietenpol Computer Science Award was created. More information about his life and career can be found in this article from Maryville.

Edward “Ted” Odell passed away on January 9, 2013, at the age of 65. He was a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, and a member of the MAA since 1978. He was the co-author of Number Theory Through Inquiry, published by the MAA. Information about his career can be found in this article in The Daily Texan, as well as his obituary.

Ray Ayoub passed away on January 5, 2013, at the age of 90. He was a professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the MAA since 1953. He received the MAA Lester R. Ford award in 1975 for his article “Euler and the zeta function” in the Monthly. He was also the editor of Musings of the Masters, published by the MAA. Ayoub served on the MAA Board of Governors for two years, and also served as associate secretary of the AMS for seven years. Ayoub was remembered in article published by voicesweb.org, and an extensive remembrance of his life and career is available here.

Charles J. Standish passed away on January 3, 2013, at the age of 86.  He was a Senior Mathematician for IBM at the FSD Space Systems Center and a member of the MAA for 38 years.  Information about his life and career can be found in his obituary.