Category: News Postings

We are sad to report that Hans-Bjørn Foxby passed away on 08 April 2014. The University of Copenhagen’s Department of Mathematical Sciences has posted a short obituary.

On March 17, 2014, the Mathematical Society of Japan awarded the “MSJ Algebra Prize” to Yuji Yoshino for his contributions to the representation theory of Cohen-Macaulay rings. He is the third commutative algebraist to be awarded the prize; previous winners include Kei-ichi Watanabe and Shiro Goto.
Warmest congratulations to Yuji Yoshino!

We are saddened to learn that Günter Scheja (academic genealogy, MathSciNet), who worked in commutative algebra, algebraic geometry, and several complex variables, passed away January 26.
Here is an obituary in German and in English translation.

Aron Simis sends in this photo of Jean-Louis Koszul, taken in Grenoble France.
Aron writes, “I wonder if this of interest to the community to post the picture. I consider it quite rare, since I spent most of my mathematical life talking about “Koszul” and finally met my mathematics in person!”
Also in the photo (l to r): Marcel Morales, Mikhail Zaidenberg, ??, Koszul, Simis, Lê Tuân Hoa, Santiago Zarzuela.

We are saddened to report that Dan Laksov, Norwegian algebraist and algebraic geometer, passed away on 25 October 2013. Laksov earned his PhD at MIT in 1972, as a student of Steven Kleiman, and held positions at Stockholm University, the Institute Mittag-Leffler, Uppsala University and KTH. He worked in such areas as the Schubert calculus, determinantal schemes, Weierstrass points, syzygies, and Hilbert schemes. More information: Wikipedia (Swedish), MGP, MathSciNet. Our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Congratulations to Srikanth B. Iyengar (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) and Irena Peeva (Cornell University) for being named Fellows of the AMS for 2014. Iyengar was cited for contributions to commutative algebra, representation theory, homotopy theory, and algebraic geometry. Peeva was cited for contributions to commutative algebra and its applications. See the list of all the 2014 Fellows here.

We are saddened to learn that David Rees has passed away, peacefully in hospital in Exeter, aged 95.
Commalgists will know Rees’ name through the familiar expressions ‘Rees rings’, ‘Rees algebras’ and the ‘Artin–Rees Lemma’. The concept of reduction of an ideal in a local ring, introduced in a paper written jointly by Douglas Northcott and David Rees about 60 years ago, continues to be much used and frequently cited in the 21st century.

Release the balloons! We just added post number 500 to the commalg.org database. (Appropriately enough, it was this post about a Macaulay2 workshop.)
We’d like to take advantage of this milestone to thank you, the users of commalg.org, for your support and encouragement over the last 12 years (12 years!). It’s a service we love providing to the community, and we don’t plan to stop.
Thanks,
Graham Leuschke
Moira McDermott
Sean Sather-Wagstaff
the commalg.org team

The distinguished German mathematician Egbert Brieskorn passed away on 11th July. Brieskorn was best known for his work in singularity theory, particularly in deformations, resolutions, and connections (!) with Lie groups. See G.-M. Greuel’s “Some Aspects of Brieskorn’s Mathematical Work” from a 1998 birthday conference for Brieskorn, or the Simons Foundation’s 2010 interview with Brieskorn, for more about his life and work.