Joseph James Dennis (11 April 1905 in

Gainesville, Florida Gainesville is the county seat of Alachua County, Florida, United States, and the most populous city in North Central Florida, with a population of 145,212 in 2022. It is the principal city of the Gainesville metropolitan area, Florida, Gainesv ...

– April 1977)Joseph Dennis in the U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 was an African-American mathematician. He served as the chairman of the

Clark College Clark College is a public community college in Vancouver, Washington. With 11,500 students, Clark College is the largest institution of higher education in southwest Washington. Founded in 1933 as a private junior college, Clark College receive ...

mathematics department from 1930 to 1974. Dennis gained his B.A. from Clark College in 1929, and his M.A. from Northwestern University in 1935. He earned his Ph.D. at

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

in 1944. This is the same year as two other African-American men earned a Ph.D in mathematics, Wade Ellis Sr. and Warren Hill Brothers (both from the University of North Western University). His thesis was "Some Points in the Theory of Positive Definite J-Fractions" (related to

continued fraction A continued fraction is a mathematical expression that can be written as a fraction with a denominator that is a sum that contains another simple or continued fraction. Depending on whether this iteration terminates with a simple fraction or not, ...

s), supervised by H. S. Wall. He was one of the first

African Americans African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa ...

to earn a PhD. A building, and a scholarship fund for junior and senior mathematics majors at Clark University, are named in J.J. Dennis' honor.

External links

* http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/PEEPS/dennis_josephj.html * http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00073707/00005 * Thesis by Sherese LaTrelle Williams on Dennis and his contributions to Clark University

References

1905 births 1977 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics Northwestern University alumni People from Gainesville, Florida {{US-mathematician-stub