43. Lipman Bers

President, 1975–1976

Ph.D. Doctor of Natural Sciences, University of Prague (now Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic), 1938

Bers came to the U.S. in 1940 by way of his native Latvia, then Czechoslovakia and France, all the while a political activist. His areas of research were potential theory, partial differential equations, Riemann surfaces, Kleinian groups, and Teichmüller theory. He had academic appointments at Syracuse University (1945-1951), the Courant Institute at New York University (1951-1964), and at Columbia University (1964 until his retirement in 1982). Over the course of his career he advised a high proportion of women doctoral students (16 of 48). An excellent expositor, Bers received the AMS Leroy P. Steele Prize for Exposition in 1975. Bers was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Additional information

• MR Author Profile
• History of the Second Fifty Years: American Mathematical Society, 1939-1988 , by Everett Pitcher (AMS, 1988), which includes AMS Presidents from 1939-1988 (and reports on all aspects of the Society during the period).
• The MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive
• Mathematics Genealogy Project
• "Remembering Lipman Bers," by Cathleen S. Morawetz, William Abikoff, Carol Corillon, Jane Gilman, Irwin Kra, and Tilla Weinstein, Notices of the AMS, January 1995 (Vol. 42, No. 1, p.8).
• "Lipman Bers, 79, Human Rights Activist, Dies," an obituary, the Columbia University Record, November 12, 1993 (Vol. 19, No. 10).
• "Lipman Bers: May 22, 1914-October 29, 1993," by Irwin Kra and Hyman Bass, Biographical Memoirs, National Academy of Sciences.
• Who's That Mathematician? Images from the Paul R. Halmos Photograph Collection