In Memory Of ...

Dan Rudolph (1949-2010)
Rudolph, a professor at Colorado State University, died of ALS on February 4 at the age of 60. He was a leading ergodic theorist who received his PhD from Stanford University in 1975. The spring 2010 meeting of the Workshop on Dynamical Systems and Related Topics at the University of Maryland, which was to have been in honor of Rudolph's 60th birthday, will now be held in his memory. Rudolph was an AMS member since 1979.

Steve Fisk (1946-2010)
Fisk died January 31 at the age of 63, after a 10-year battle with leukemia. He may be best known for his elegant proof of the Art Gallery Theorem: Given an art gallery in the shape of a simple polygon with  n  walls, [n/3] guards at the vertices are sometimes necessary and always sufficient to view the interior of the polygon (and its boundary). Fisk's proof, which involved coloring the vertices, came to him while he and his wife were on a bus in Afghanistan. After receiving a Westinghouse Science Talent Search scholarship in high school, Fisk attended the University of California, Berkeley as an undergraduate. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1972 under the direction of Gian-Carlo Rota. In 1977 he joined the faculty at Bowdoin College. Although one word is not adequate to describe his approach to life, the entry on his Bowdoin web page does provide a glimpse into his natural inquisitiveness--Other Interests: Plenty. Fisk was an AMS member since 1977. Read more about his life in an obituary from the Portland Press Herald.

James F. Hannan (1922-2010)
Hannan, who had been a professor of statistics and probability at Michigan State University before retiring, died January 26 at the age of 87. Hannan received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1953. He successfully directed 18 PhD students at Michigan State. Hannan was an AMS member since 1949.

Frederick H. Steen (1907-2010)
Steen died January 13 at the age of 102. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1934 under the direction of George David Birkhoff. Steen then taught at Georgia Tech for eight years before joining the faculty at Allegheny College in 1942. He taught at Allegheny for 33 years, serving as chair of the Mathematics Department for 27 years and as secretary of the faculty. Steen was an AMS member since 1936. For more information, read "Two Retired Faculty Embody What Is Best About Allegheny," by Allegheny Professor Emeritus Charles Cable from the 2003 Fall/Winter issue of Allegheny Magazine.

Eduardo H. Zarantonello (1918-2010)
Zarantonello died January 13 at the age of 91. He received his PhD from the National University of La Plata in Argentina in 1941and was the author or co-author of more than 25 research papers in operator theory. Zarantonello was an AMS member since 1943.

Michael E. Moody (1952-2010)
Moody passed away on January 21 at the age of 57. He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1979, and taught at Washington State University from 1981 to 1994. Moody then moved to Harvey Mudd College (HMC), serving as department chair from 1996 to 2002. Largely as a result of his leadership, HMC's math department was awarded the AMS's inaugural Award for an Exemplary Program or Achievement in a Mathematics Department in 2006. In 2002, he moved to Olin College where he served as its vice president for academic affairs and founding dean of faculty. Olin's president, Richard K. Miller, said, "Michael Moody was the architect of the unique Olin learning culture. Olin simply wouldn't be what it is today without Michael's gifted leadership and enormous work ethic." Read more about Moody's life.

See the 2008-2009 archive and 2006-2007 archive for notices of prior deaths.

Submissions about recent deaths, including the person's name, birth and death dates, and brief information about him or her, may be sent to paoffice@ams.org.