Left to right: Dustin Belt, Stacy Wohead, Douglas Babcock, Richard Eden, Eduardo Garcia

• 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.— Luncheon (Lafayette Room, PMU)

• 4:30-5:30 p.m. — Jean E. Rubin Memorial Lecture (BRNG B268)
  Alice Chang, “Q-curvature in Conformal Geometry”

Professor Chang is Chair of the Mathematics Department at Princeton University. Throughout her career, she has received numerous awards for her mathematical achievements and service to the community. She was the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. She served as Vice President of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) from 1989 to 1991, and in 1995, she received the AMS Ruth Lyttle Satter Prize for outstanding contributions to mathematics research by a woman. In 2002, she was an invited plenary speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), the most prestigious invitation a mathematician can aspire to have in his or her career. Prof. Chang has also been active in many efforts to increase the representation of women in mathematics.

Jean E. Rubin was Professor of Mathematics at Purdue University from 1967 until her death in 2002. She received a B.S. from Queen’s College in New York City in 1948, an M.A. from Columbia in 1949, and a Ph.D. from Stanford in 1955. She taught at Oregon and Michigan State before coming to Purdue. Professor Rubin was the author of more than 40 papers and five books in set theory and questions related to the axiom of choice.

In 1941, Len began his college studies as a chemistry major at the University of Chicago. When World War II started, he joined the military, completing meteorology training programs at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Chicago. He was commissioned as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps and served as a weather officer.

After completing military service, Len resumed his studies at the University of Chicago. He was elected to Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa honoraries and received a B.S. in meteorology in 1946. He considered graduate work in physics, but chose mathematics and entered graduate school at the University of Chicago, receiving a master’s degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1951. His thesis, written under the direction of Antoni Zygmund, was in the area of double trigonometric series.

From 1951 to 1952, Len was an Atomic Energy Commission Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University. From 1952 to 1954, he was a Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology, where he conducted research in asymptotic expansions. While at Caltech, he met Anna Whitehouse, who was working in a tissue culture laboratory at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. They were married on June 18, 1953.

In 1954, Len joined the Mathematics Division at the Rand Corporation, where he worked on the mathematical theory of games and on a variety of tactical problems for the Air Force. He participated as a technical observer in Air Force tactical exercises and helped introduce the novel idea (now common practice) of using simulation methods for determining the outcome of tactical engagements.

In 1962, Len joined the Purdue faculty as Professor of Mathematics. He was Head of the Mathematics Department from 1975 to 1980 and Acting Head from 1989-1990. He served on numerous curriculum and administrative committees, and he remained active in research and teaching until his retirement in 2003. Eleven students obtained Ph.D. degrees under his supervision.

Len’s research focused on differential games, optimal control theory, and nonclassical variational problems. He was the author of several textbooks and numerous scientific papers. Len served as associate editor, editor, and managing editor for SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization from 1967 to 1991. He was associate editor for the Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications and for the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications. He was a member of the editorial Committee of Mathematical Reviews from 1985 to 1991.

Len is survived by his wife, Anna; sons Dan M. (Michele) of Bethesda, Md., and Kenneth E. (Nancy) of Akron, Ohio; and grandchildren Elizabeth, Jonathan, Matthew, Zoe and Eli.

Donations in memory of Len can be made to the American Heart Association or to Purdue Foundation for the Leonard D. and Anna W. Berkovitz Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for undergraduate mathematics majors.

Kent H. Somers is the 2009 Outstanding Actuarial Science alumnus.  He is Vice President, Appointed Actuary, and Head of the Financial Actuarial Department of the Lincoln Financial Group. He also serves on the Executive Steering Committee for the Actuarial Development Program at Lincoln.

After receiving his B.S. in mathematics in 1986, Mr. Somers joined Lincoln as part of the actuarial science program. Prior to serving in his current role, he headed the Life & Annuity Valuation Department. Other positions held at Lincoln include Valuation Actuary, Director of Asset/Liability Management, and Assistant Appointed Actuary.

Mr. Somers is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA). He earned his Chartered Enterprise Risk Analyst (CERA) credential, and he is a CFA Charterholder.

Mr. Somers was honored along with other outstanding alumni of the Mathematics and Statistics Departments at a dinner on Thursday, September 24. The College of Science hosted a reception for all CoS outstanding alumni on September 25.

Alex Himonas, Professor of Mathematics at the University of Notre Dame, is the 2009 Outstanding Mathematics Alumnus.

Prof. Himonas received his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1985 under the direction of Salah Baouendi. Prof. Himonas is interested in the regularity of solutions to linear partial differential equations (PDE), and in the Cauchy problem for nonlinear evolution equations. His earlier work concentrated on the microlocal analytic regularity of the solutions to principal type PDE with analytic coefficients. More recently, he is working on the regularity theory (analytic, smooth) for degenerate elliptic PDE, in particular PDE that are sums of squares of vector fields. In non-linear PDE, he is working on the well-posedness of the initial value problem for evolution equations.

Prof. Himonas gave a talk on Thursday, September 24 at 4:30 p.m. in BRNG 1230. Following the talk, there was a dinner in honor of Prof. Himonas and outstanding alumni of the Department of Statistics and the Actuarial Science program. The College of Science hosted a reception for all CoS outstanding alumni on September 25.

The SOA is an education, research, and professional organization dedicated to serving the public and its 20,000 members. The SOA’s vision is for actuaries to be the leading professionals in the measurement and management of risk. The SOA’s mission is to advance actuarial knowledge and to enhance the ability of actuaries to provide expert advice and relevant solutions for financial, business, and societal problems involving uncertain future events.

As a member of the actuarial science program faculty, Beckley has taught at Purdue since 2004. Each year, science undergraduate students select the faculty member whose teaching has had the greatest impact on science majors. In 2005-06 and 2006-07, he was voted the College of Science Outstanding Undergraduate Teacher, and his name regularly appears in their list of top ten teachers.

After graduating from Ball State University with a degree in actuarial science, Beckley held executive positions with Lafayette Life Insurance and Standard Life Insurance before starting his own firm, Beckley & Associates, in 1986. His actuarial consulting firm was purchased in 1999 by Deloitte & Touche, for whom Beckley worked until 2004.

From 1981-95, Beckley served on several of the Society of Actuaries committees that write the actuarial exams. He began by writing exam questions and eventually became the Chairperson of the Examination committee, and finally, Vice General Chairperson of the Education and Examination Committee.

Beckley is a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries (FSA) and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries (MAAA). He won the 2001 President’s Award for outstanding service to the SOA. He previously served on the Ball State actuarial advisory board and has been on Purdue’s actuarial science advisory board since 1998.

See the Department of Computer Science’s release for more details.

He was born April 18, 1913 in Maywood, Illinois. He attended the University of Chicago, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and in 1938 a Ph.D., in mathematics. During graduate school, he worked as a science teacher at Sunrise, an experimental collective farm in Michigan.

In 1937, he married Esther Rockoff, and she preceded him in death in April 2009.

After graduate school, he taught math for one year at the University of Michigan and for two years at Illinois Institute of Technology. During World War II, he moved to Los Angeles and was employed by Lockheed Aircraft. In 1946, he moved to West Lafayette, where he worked in the Purdue University Mathematics Department until his retirement in 1983.

He directed three doctoral dissertations at Purdue. He is known for his 1942 discovery of a mathematical technique now called the Perlis-Jacobson radical, for the 1950 Perlis-Walker Theorem, and for his book Theory of Matrices, published in 1952. He twice spent an academic year in Rome.

He was very active in the West Lafayette food Co-op and in Save the Dunes, and ice-skated regularly with the Indianapolis Winter Club. He enjoyed landscaping and art.

Surviving are two sons, Donald and Robert.

As did Esther before him, Sam donated his body to medical science. Their sons will scatter their ashes in the Rocky Mountains, where the family spent many summers hiking together, the last being in 2004 when Sam was 91 and Esther 83.

Zhang, who received his Ph.D. in May, wrote a thesis on finite element methods under the direction of Professor Zhiqiang Cai. He will continue to work with Professor Cai during the coming academic year as a postdoctoral research associate.