24. Robert Lee Moore

President, 1937–1938

The AMS recognizes and abjures R.L. Moore's racist views and behaviors. For further reading:

• Modern Mathematics Confronts its White Patriarchal Past" by Rachel Crowell in Scientific American, August 12, 2021
• Removing the name of a segregationist from a science building at UT Austin will help us recruit stem scholars of color by Shardha Jogee in the Dallas News, July 26, 2020

Ph.D. University of Chicago, Illinois, 1905

R.L. Moore's research was in the fields of foundations of mathematics, topology, and functions of a real variable. He taught mathematics at the University of Tennessee (1905-06), Princeton University (1906-08), Northwestern University (1908-11), the University of Pennsylvania (1911-20) and finally at the University of Texas (where he taught until he was 86 years old). His original teaching method, which became known as the Moore Method, influenced others to use similar methods. Moore was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Additional information

• MR Author Profile
• A Semicentennial History of the American Mathematical Society, 1888--1938, by Raymond Clare Archibald (AMS, 1938), which contains CV, honors, bibliography, biographical notes and sources.
• The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
• Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Guide to the R.L. Moore Papers, 1875, 1891-1975 at the The Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin