Items about former faculty are listed on this page until they're gathered into a cumulative newsletter. For the previous newsletter, follow the link at left.
To contribute an item, submit it to the editor via email: alum@math.sfsu.edu.
Lawrence CHANG (1944-1983), BA 1968. Blind from early childhood, Dr. Chang served as research mathematician at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, then on our faculty during the years 1980–1983. He authored Handbook for Spoken Mathematics: Larry's Speakeasy, to help those who read text to blind mathematics students. This still current work is now in use by the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. Our Chang scholarship honors his memory.
Hal FORSEY has lived for a decade on Guemes Island in the San Juan Archipelago between Washington State and Vancouver Island. He and his wife Dayle are planning to move soon to the Portland area. He continues to work on financial planning with the Pension Research Institute.
José GUTIERREZ and his wife Gloria have been spending much time at their beach house near Cabo San Lucas. He sent greetings from Peru, where they were on vacation in April 2008.
Leonard HAINES sends greetings from Hawaii, where he is fixing up a townhouse on the leeward side of Oahu.
Arthur J. HALL (19??-2007) joined our faculty in 1946. He had been a graduate student at Stanford and had served in the Navy. Because of the extreme need for mathematics teachers, President J. Paul Leonard persuaded him to study for the Ed. D. degree, which he completed at Stanford under the supervision of Lucien B. Kinney. Acting as chair of a group that would become a department only after 1955, Hall hired the core of the faculty that would serve into the 1970s. During the 1950s, Hall convinced Chancellor Glenn Dumke of the importance of statistical data for academic administration, then in 1959 was named CSU Dean of Institutional Research. In 1975 he returned to the Department as Professor until 1977. After retirement, he undertook historical studies of SFSU and the CSU system. —Contributed by Franklin Sheehan, Professor Emeritus.
Diane RESEK remains extremely active in mathematics education during Spring 2008. She has given talks on models for teacher training and classroom presentation at conferences in Thailand, Washington DC, and San Mateo, and will participate in a panel discussion at an MSRI conference on future trends during May. She has written two proposals to NSF for grants to extend the Department's large REvitalizing ALgebra project, one with Professor Judith Kysh and the other with Kysh and Professor Matthias Beck. Click here for Prof. Resek’s website.
Eugene R. TOMER, a former lecturer, died of cancer on 2 July 2007 in San Francisco. Tomer was a consulting applied mathematician, noted for his work modeling the formation and rotation of galaxies. He gave a fascinating colloquium talk here on that subject around 1980.
