Special Collections History

Alexander Doniphan Wallace
1905 – 1985

Alexander Doniphan Wallace was born on August 21, 1905 in Hampton, Virginia. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Virginia in 1935, his M.A. degree from the University of Virginia in 1936, and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 1940. He began his professional career as an Instructor at Princeton University, 1940 – 41, and then went onto the University of Pennsylvania as an Associate Professor from 1941 – 1947. He joined the faculty at Tulane University as Professor and Head of the Department of Mathematics in 1947. He left Tulane in 1963 for the University of Florida, Gainesville. He was a member of Sigma Xi, the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, and numerous international societies. He was also Member-at-Large of the National Research Council, Division of Mathematics from 1962 – 65. He is the founder of one of the major fields of fundamental mathematical research, topological algebra. He also served as consultant on mathematical matters for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the National Science Foundation. He retired in December 1974 as adjunct Professor in the Department of Mathematics, Tulane University.

Frank Douglas Quigley
1928 – 1996

Frank Douglas Quigley was born on June 5, 1928 in Maysville, Kentucky. He received his A.B. degree from Harvard University in Mathematics in 1949 and his Ph.D. from University of Chicago in Mathematics in 1953, under the direction of Andre Weil, one of the most famous mathematicians of our time. After teaching at Yale University from 1953 – 1959, he then joined the faculty of Tulane University in 1959 – 64 as Associate Professor and was promoted to Professor in 1964. He served as Chairman of the Department of Mathematics from 1972 – 73. He was a member of the American Mathematical Association, the Mathematical Association of America and Sigma Xi. He authored a book entitled, A Manual of Axiomatic Set Theory, 1971. He was awarded various grants from the National Science Foundation and was renown for his broad mathematical expertise and for his erudition which extended well beyond mathematics. His major research areas of interest were in algebraic field theory, uniform algebra and several complex variables.

sketch portrait of Frank Douglas Quigley

Edward Daire Conway III
1937 – 1985

Edward Daire Conway III was born on February 7, 1937, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He received his B.S. degree in Physics from Loyola University, New Orleans in 1959 and received his Ph.D. in Mathematics under the direction of an internationally recognized scholar, Professor E. Hopf from Indiana University in 1964. He spent a post-doctoral year at the major center in his field, the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, 1964 – 65, and two years at the University of California at San Diego, 1965 – 67. He joined the faculty of Tulane University in 1967. He served as Chairman of the Department of Mathematics from 1973 – 1975 and 1980 – 1982. He was a member of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical Association of America, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.