Cyrus Colton MacDuffee (June 29, 1895 – August 21, 1961) from

Oneida, New York Oneida (, one, kanaˀalóhaleˀ) is a city in Madison County located west of Oneida Castle (in Oneida County) and east of Wampsville, New York, United States. The population was 11,390 at the 2010 census. The city, like both Oneida County an ...

was a professor of mathematics at

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

. He wrote a number of influential research papers in

abstract algebra In mathematics, more specifically algebra, abstract algebra or modern algebra is the study of algebraic structures. Algebraic structures include groups, rings, fields, modules, vector spaces, lattices, and algebras over a field. The te ...

. MacDuffee served on the Council of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings ...

(A.M.S.), was editor of the '' Transactions of the A.M.S.'', and served as president of the Mathematical Association of America (M.A.A).MAA presidents: Cyrus Colton MacDuffee
/ref>
/ref> MacDuffee obtained his B.S. degree in 1917 from Colgate University and a Ph.D. in 1922 from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

; his thesis was on

Nonassociative algebra A non-associative algebra (or distributive algebra) is an algebra over a field where the binary multiplication operation is not assumed to be associative. That is, an algebraic structure ''A'' is a non-associative algebra over a field ''K'' if ...

s under the direction of

Leonard E. Dickson Leonard Eugene Dickson (January 22, 1874 – January 17, 1954) was an American mathematician. He was one of the first American researchers in abstract algebra, in particular the theory of finite fields and classical groups, and is also remem ...

. In 1935, MacDuffee joined the University of Wisconsin, where he remained until his death in 1961. He served as chair of the department (1951–56). Later, Wisconsin endowed a university chair under his name. Prior to joining the University of Wisconsin, he served at

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

and

Ohio State The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public ...

. He guided 30 Ph.D. students, among them

D. R. Fulkerson Delbert Ray Fulkerson (; August 14, 1924 – January 10, 1976) was an American mathematician who co-developed the FordFulkerson algorithm, one of the most well-known algorithms to solve the maximum flow problem in networks. Early life and e ...

H. J. Ryser Herbert John Ryser (July 28, 1923 – July 12, 1985) was a professor of mathematics, widely regarded as one of the major figures in combinatorics in the 20th century.Bonnie Stewart Bonnie Madison Stewart (July 10, 1914 – April 15, 1994) was a professor of mathematics at Michigan State University from 1940 to 1980. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1941, under the supervision of Cyrus Colton ...

. MacDuffee's daughter

Helen Helen may refer to: People * Helen of Troy, in Greek mythology, the most beautiful woman in the world * Helen (actress) (born 1938), Indian actress * Helen (given name), a given name (including a list of people with the name) Places * Helen, G ...

became a statistician at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degree ...

and the mayor of

Corvallis, Oregon Corvallis ( ) is a city and the county seat of Benton County in central western Oregon, United States. It is the principal city of the Corvallis, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Benton County. As of the 2020 Unite ...

Bibliography

* (2nd ed., 1946). * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Macduffee, Cyrus Colton 1895 births 1961 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians Algebraists University of Chicago alumni Colgate University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Ohio State University faculty Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America People from Oneida, New York Mathematicians from New York (state)

Bibliography

See also

References