Biography:I. Martin Isaacs

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I. Martin Isaacs
Born(1940-04-14)April 14, 1940
DiedFebruary 17, 2025(2025-02-17) (aged 84)
Scientific career
FieldsGroup theory, mathematics
Institutions
  • University of Chicago
  • University of Wisconsin–Madison

Irving Martin Isaacs (April 14, 1940 – February 17, 2025) was an American group theorist and representation theorist. He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison until his retirement.[1][2][3][4]

Biography

Isaacs was born in the Bronx, in New York City, on April 14, 1940.[5][6] He received a BS from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1960.[6]

Isaacs went on to Harvard University for graduate study. He received a master's degree in 1961,[6] and completed his PhD in 1964. His thesis was advised by Richard Brauer,[7] and was titled Finite p-solvable linear groups.[8] After a few years at the University of Chicago as an instructor and visiting assistant professor, Isaacs moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1969.[6] He was hired as an associate professor, and promoted to full professor in 1971.[6] According to the Mathematics Genealogy Project, he supervised 29 doctoral students over his career.[7]

In 2011, Isaacs retired and became a professor emeritus.[1][2][3][4] In retirement, he lived in Berkeley, California and was an occasional participant on MathOverflow.[4] Near the end of his life, he endowed a prize awarded for "Excellence in Mathematical Writing," first awarded in 2025.[5][9]

Research

Isaacs is most famous for formulating the Isaacs–Navarro conjecture along with Gabriel Navarro, a widely cited generalization of the McKay conjecture.[10][11]

Books

Isaacs is famous as the author of Character Theory of Finite Groups (first published in 1976), one of the most well-known graduate student-level introductory books in character theory and representation theory of finite groups.[12][13]

Isaacs is also the author of the book Algebra: A Graduate Course (first published in 1994; republished in 2009),[14] which received highly positive reviews.[15] Additionally, he is the author of Finite Group Theory (published in 2008).[16][17][18]

Honors

In 2009, a conference was held at the Universitat de Valencia in Spain to honor his contributions.[19] Following the conference, a festschrift was published by the American Mathematical Society.[20]

Isaacs was also a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[21]

Isaacs was a Pólya lecturer for the Mathematical Association of America. He received the Benjamin Smith Reynolds award for teaching engineering students at the University of Wisconsin and a UW Madison campus teaching award. He was also the recipient of a Sloan Foundation research award.

Personal life

Isaacs was seriously injured in an automobile accident in France in 1964, shortly after receiving his PhD. The accident left him scarred and disabled.[5]

He died of kidney failure on February 17, 2025.[5]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Emeritus Faculty and Staff Directory". Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin-Madison. http://www.math.wisc.edu/emeritus-faculty-and-staff-directory. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "I. Martin Isaacs". University of Wisconsin Madison (Experts Guide). Archived from the original on May 25, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140525200429/http://experts.news.wisc.edu/experts/869. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Emeritus Professor Proposals". http://www.math.wisc.edu/~passman/emeritus.html. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "User Marty Isaacs". MathOverflow. https://mathoverflow.net/users/9694/marty-isaacs. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Passman, Don (2025). "Memorial Resolution for Marty Isaacs". University of Wisconsin–Madison. https://math.wisc.edu/memorial-resolution-for-marty-isaacs/. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Kalte, Pamela M.; Nemeh, Katherine H.; Schusterbauer, Noah, eds (2005). American Men & Women of Science. 3 (G-I) (22nd ed.). Thomson Gale. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "I. Martin (Irving) Isaacs". Mathematics Genealogy Project. http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=9224. Retrieved April 11, 2016. 
  8. ↑ Isaacs, Irving Martin (1964). Finite p-solvable linear groups (PhD thesis). Harvard University.
  9. ↑ "Green to Receive Inaugural I. Martin Isaacs Prize". American Mathematical Society. November 26, 2024. https://www.ams.org/news?news_id=7396. 
  10. ↑ Isaacs, I. Martin; Navarro, Gabriel (2002). "New refinements of the McKay conjecture for finite groups". Annals of Mathematics 156: 333–344. doi:10.2307/3597192. 
  11. ↑ "Isaacs-Navarro conjecture". Groupprops, The Group Properties Wiki. http://groupprops.subwiki.org/wiki/Isaacs-Navarro_conjecture. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  12. ↑ Isaacs, I. Martin (January 1994). Character Theory of Finite Groups (Dover Books on Mathematics). ISBN 978-0486680149. 
  13. ↑ Curtis, Charles W. (1977). "Character theory of finite groups (book review)". Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 83 (5): 1005–1007. doi:10.1090/s0002-9904-1977-14355-3. http://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183539464. 
  14. ↑ Berg, Michael (April 24, 2009). "Review of Algebra: A Graduate Course by I. Martin Isaacs". https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/algebra-a-graduate-course. 
  15. ↑ "Algebra: A Graduate Course". American Mathematical Society. https://bookstore.ams.org/gsm-100/. 
  16. ↑ Isaacs, I. Martin. "Additional Material for the Book (Finite Group Theory)". American Mathematical Society. http://www.ams.org/publications/authors/books/postpub/gsm-92. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  17. ↑ Isaacs, I. Martin (January 1, 2008). Finite Group Theory. American Mathematical Society. ISBN 978-0-8218-4344-4.  2011 reprint with corrections
  18. ↑ Locascio, Andrew (April 20, 2009). "Review of Finite Group Theory by I. Martin Isaacs". https://www.maa.org/press/maa-reviews/finite-group-theory. 
  19. ↑ "Isaacs Conference: Conference on Character Theory of Finite Groups". June 3–5, 2009. http://www.uv.es/isaacs09/. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 
  20. ↑ Lewis, Mark L.; Navarro, Gabriel; Passman, Donald S. et al., eds (2010). Character Theory of Finite Groups: Conference in Honor of I. Martin Isaacs. Contemporary Mathematics. 524. American Mathematical Society. https://www.google.si/books/edition/Character_Theory_of_Finite_Groups/KlDUAwAAQBAJ. Retrieved February 24, 2025. 
  21. ↑ "List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society". American Mathematical Society. http://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list. Retrieved May 25, 2014. 



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