Griffith Conrad Evans (May 11, 1887 – December 8, 1973) was a mathematician working for much of his career at the University of California, Berkeley. He is largely credited with elevating Berkeley's mathematics department to a top-tier research department,[1] having recruited many notable mathematicians in the 1930s and 1940s.

Biography

Evans earned his PhD at Harvard in 1910 under Maxime Bôcher with a dissertation on Volterra's Integral Equation, after which he did a post-doc for two years at the University of Rome on a Sheldon Fellowship from Harvard.[2] Evans was then appointed assistant professor at Rice University in 1912 and promoted to professor in 1916.[2] He married Isabel Mary John in 1917 and they would eventually have 3 children.[2] In 1934, he moved to University of California, Berkeley to chair the mathematics department[3]. Here, Evans was tasked with improving the department, including the initiation of a graduate program. Much of his success was due to his ability to recruit many notable research mathematicians, including Hans Lewy, Jerzy Neyman, and Alfred Tarski[1]. His own research work was in potential theory and mathematics applied to economics. He chaired Berkeley's department until 1949 and retired in 1955,[3] eventually becoming the namesake of Evans Hall at Berkeley.

Notable posts

* Chair, University of California, Berkeley Mathematics Department (1934–1949)
* President, American Mathematical Society (1939–1940)
* Member, National Academy of Sciences (1933)

References

1. ^ a b Kirby, R. (2008) Mathematics at Berkeley: A History, AMS Notices 55(10), 1237–1240.
2. ^ a b c Morrey, C. B. (1983) Griffith Conrad Evans, 1887-1973: A Biographical Memoir, National Academy of Sciences.
3. ^ a b AMS Presidents: Griffith Evans

External links

* Griffith C. Evans at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
* portrait