Department of Mathematics Directory
People - In Memoriam
- Alexander Rokhlenko (1935-2021)
Alexander Rokhlenko, PhD, age 85, passed away on Monday, April 26, 2021. He is survived by his wife, Tatyana Kukavskaya of Princeton, NJ; his son, Vadim and his daughter-in-law Irina Pronina of Allendale, NJ; his granddaughter Katerina of San Diego, CA; and many other relatives in Kiev, Ukraine.
Alexander was born on June 13, 1935 in Kiev, USSR. He became an orphan at a very young age after losing his mother to a terminal disease and his father in the war. Brought up by his beloved aunt Rebecca in significant hardships, he became an outstanding high school and university student as well as an athlete.
After graduating with honors from the Kiev State University with a degree in physics he was unable for a few years to secure a job in line with his education due to the state-sponsored antisemitism until finally he became a scientist and worked as a physicist achieving significant international success and publishing many outstanding articles.
At first opportunity, he and his son Vadim emigrated to the USA in 1989 where Alexander, after a few years of teaching graduate and undergraduate students, acquired a position as a visiting professor at Rutgers University that he held until his retirement. That fruitful span produced many more outstanding scientific articles, some with collaboration with Dr. Joel Leibowitz of the Rutgers University Department of Mathematics.
Alexander continued to do scientific work until he was stricken by dementia and after that he was self-sacrificially cared for by his beloved wife Tatyana until the very end. He was an avid book collector and reader, spear-fisher, recreational swimmer and electronics and mechanics enthusiast, designing his own shortwave radios and spear guns. He also hand-made a TV set when he was just 24 years old.
He was an extremely generous person, donating his time and skills to tutor various people in physics and mathematics and to repair home electric and electronic appliances for his friends. He continuously displayed his brilliance in many activities and fields of knowledge throughout his life.
Alexander passed on surrounded by his loved ones who will forever cherish warm memories of his presence in their lives.
- Benjamin Muckenhoupt (1933-2020)
Benjamin Muckenhoupt, Ph.D., age 86 years, former longtime resident of Neshanic Station, NJ, died peacefully on Monday, April 13, 2020 at Arden Courts of Whippany, Whippany, NJ.
Born on December 22, 1933, son of Carl Frederick Muckenhoupt and Sarah Johanna Boell Muckenhoupt in Boston, MA.
A gifted mathematician, Dr. Muckenhoupt won the National William Lowell Putnam Compettition in 1954. He earned his AB at Harvard University, and his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1958, and spent two years as a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study. He was a full professor at Rutgers University, where he taught and researched for twenty-seven years, retiring in 1991.
Attending the Princeton Unitarian Church, Princeton, NJ, Ben also was a faculty advisor of the Rutgers Square Dance Club and served on the Branchburg Sewer Commision for several years.
In addition to his parents, he is preceded in death by his brother Frederick Muckenhoupt.
Surviving are his wife, whom he joined hands in marriage in 1964, Mary Kay Muckenhoupt; daughter Meg Muckenhoupt and her husband, Scott Stuart; son, Carl Muckenhoupt; sister, Johanna Enzmann; and grandchildren Benjamin, Heath, and Jasper Nevis.
- Joanne Elliott (1925-2023)
Born in Providence RI in 1925, Joanne Elliott of Princeton NJ, passed away March 5, 2023 in Titusville NJ.
She received her Ph.D. in mathematics in 1950 from Cornell University with a thesis entitled On Some Singular Integral Equations of the Cauchy Type. This was at a time when women mathematicians were a rarity. Her distinguished career began with one year at Swarthmore College followed by an assistant professorship at Mount Holyoke College where she wrote the 1956 paper "Stochastic Processes Connected With Harmonic Functions," with William Feller. In the same year she relocated to Barnard College, teaching at Columbia University. By 1964, she had arrived at Douglass College of Rutgers University, and was Professor of Mathematics from 1965 until her retirement in 1991. She supervised five Ph.D. theses during 1967-1978.
Joanne was an inveterate reader who loved and supported music and the arts. She travelled extensively with her close friend, mathematician and photographer, Natascha Artin Brunswick. An avid birdwatcher, she and her friends Tanya and Milton Moss frequented the vicinity of the Atlantic flyway and visited other countries specifically to go birding.
On retiring from Rutgers, Joanne volunteered for many years interpreting mathematical texts at Reading for the Blind, (now Learning Ally). Throughout her life she supported numerous charities and derived much pleasure from so doing.
She was predeceased by her parents John Sanderson and Martha Hester (Robertson) Elliott, a brother Robert G. Elliott, and a nephew John S. Elliott.
Joanne is survived by her niece Debbie Reed, a cousin Julie Monson and many dear friends.
- Richard Gundy (1934 - 2023)
- Graduate Faculty
Distinguished Emeritus Professor Richard Floyd Gundy passed away peacefully on February 20th, 2023. He was 89 years old.
Dick graduated from Illinois College. He went on to earn a PhD in Experimental Psychology at Indiana University, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago. Fascinated with the statistics he learned in the Psychology program, he decided to turn to mathematics and earned a PhD in Statistics from the University of Chicago, with Patrick Billingsley as advisor. His combined applied and theoretical training made him particularly attractive to the Rutgers Statistics Department. He joined the faculty there in 1965, and for the next 52 years he taught a variety of math and statistics courses, both at the undergraduate and graduate level. He was instrumental in the development of the Statistics department’s graduate program.
Dick was a Fellow of both the IMS and the American Mathematical Society. He served as Associate Editor of Applied and Computational Harmonic Analysis, of Potential Analysis (Kluwer Academic Press), and of Publicacions Matemàtiques (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). He is most recognized for his contributions in the field of probability theory, particularly the theory of martingales. He authored and co-authored many important papers in his field. The Burkholder–Davis–Gundy Inequality, an important result in martingale theory, is co-named after him.
Dick was a distinguished lecturer and exchange professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Institut Mittag-Leffler, Sweden; Université de Provence, Marseille; Université de Paris, Orsay; University of Cambridge; University of Grenoble; and other research universities. He had a gift for languages, starting with Spanish. He was self-taught in French and Hebrew and led classroom lectures in these languages. He also taught himself Russian and served at one point as a technical Russian translator.
Dick enjoyed staying active and fit. He was an avid squash player and runner who competed in marathons and other road races in the US and abroad. He also loved magic, particularly tricks involving coins and cards, occasionally incorporating these into basic probability lectures. Dick is survived by his wife Doris; children Peter (who recently passed away), Maria, Anastasia, Gregory and Timothy; grandchildren Carmen and Christian; and brother, Jim.
Written by Harold Sackrowitz, Rutgers University, with contributions from Dick’s colleagues and family
- Jerrold Bates Tunnell
Our longtime colleague Jerry Tunnell died in a bicycle accident on April 1, 2022. The following tribute comes from Steve Miller:
Jerry Tunnell was an active member of the Rutgers Number Theory group for nearly 40 years. He advised 7 PhD students and shaped the careers of many more in his brilliant courses on algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry. Jerry's deep understanding of the latter led to particularly insightful courses on algebraic geometry, with a familiarity and unique approach which is sadly now lost to humanity.
Many of Jerry's research works will still be studied by mathematicians a century after they were written. His most famous accomplishment, the Langlands-Tunnell Theorem, is one of the foundations on which the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was built. Perhaps even more striking in many respects was his work on the congruent number problem, a paper dense with repeated brilliant insights into the relation between an ancient problem about triangles and several cutting-edge aspects about L-functions, modular forms, and elliptic curves. Jerry's work on supercuspidal representations was also pioneering. Each of these deserves much more space and description than can be given here.
Jerry's depth of understanding and knowledge served as an amazing resource for our number theory community. His friendliness and approachability will surely be missed.
- Maria (Sao) Carvalho
Maria Conceicao (Sao) Carvalho, a longterm scientific visitor to our department, passed away on June 28, 2021 after a long struggle with cancer. Until the last few months, she had maintained the upper hand in this struggle for many years, continuing to live her life fully, including continuing her research program and delivering talks at conferences.
She is survived by her husband, Eric Carlen, and a number of close cousins in Portugal.
- Wolmer Vasconcelos (1937-2021)
Wolmer Vasconcelos died on June 14, 2021 in Florida. Wolmer was a member of the mathematics department from 1967 until his retirement in 2010. He was a pillar of our algebra group, and a much-valued and beloved member of the department.
He is survived by his wife Aurea.
Here is an announcement from the commalg.org website
- Richard Wheeden (1940-2020)
Dr. Richard (Dick) Lee Wheeden, 79, died on April 9, 2020 in a tragic accident. He was struck by a tree that felled by high winds in St. Michaels, Maryland, while out for his daily walk.
Born on November 29, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland to Lee and Ruth Wheeden, Dick graduated high school from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in three years. He earned his B.S. in Mathematics from Johns Hopkins University and both his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ offered Dr. Wheeden a year with globally renowned mathematicians. In 1967, he accepted a tenure track position at Rutgers University. He spent the next 50 years teaching and conducting research there, retiring in 2016 to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, with the title of Distinguished Professor Emeritus.
Dick met his life-long love, Sharon Lee McGlasson, when they were only 14 years old. They married in 1962 and were the parents of two children, Mike and Abbie and the proud grandparents of five grandchildren.
He is survived by Sharon, his son Michael (Kristen) of Bethesda, MD, and daughter Abbie (Bill) McCauley of Tallmadge, OH. He was a loving grandfather to Cameron, Zachary, and Brady Wheeden and to Amelia and Benjamin McCauley. He is also survived by his sister Carolyn (Ernie) Ilgenfritz of Easton, MD and many extended family and close friends.
While Sharon was his great love, math was the other. During his brief retirement, Dick continued his research in mathematics, resulting in many published papers. He was active in the Home Owners Association and volunteered on several projects to maintain the quality and beauty of the historic Perry Cabin homes. He was a member of the Wye Fellows of the Aspen Institute, where he enjoyed many inspirational talks and concerts. Dick loved his family, being outdoors, eating crabs, and doing math.
He is remembered for his intellect, humility, and his kind, gentle soul. He was loved and will be deeply missed. A celebration of life will be held at a later date, when the world is a safer place and we can gather together. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked for donations in his honor to The American Porphyria Foundation (www.porphyriafoundation.org.)
(ARCHIVED: A tribute to Dick Wheeden by Sagun Chanillo, from AMS Notices February 2022)
- William Irvine (1942-2019)
William (Bill) Irvine, who was an Instructor for the Department of Mathematics from 1995 to 2017, passed away on Thursday December 5, 2019. He was 77 years old.
Besides his many years of teaching, Bill served the department in a number of ways over the years, including as Assistant to the Vice Chair for Undergraduate affairs, and as coordinator of the Mathematics Summer Session. He is remembered as a cheerful colleague who would meet others with a hearty greeting and ready smile.
Bill came to Rutgers as an Instructor in 1995, after a long and successful career in the United States Air Force. He served in Turkey and the Middle East and throughout the United States before retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was a master woodworker and published a book titled Random Musings.
Bill was predeceased by his wife Debra Irvine in 2010. He is survived by wife Emy Irvine of Somerset and his children Scott Irvine, Lori Beasley, Jennifer Warren, and David Irvine along with his many grandchildren.