Dan Steven Archdeacon (1954–2015) was an American graph theorist specializing in

topological graph theory In mathematics, topological graph theory is a branch of graph theory. It studies the embedding of graphs in surfaces, spatial embeddings of graphs, and graphs as topological spaces. It also studies immersions of graphs. Embedding a graph in ...

, who served for many years as a professor of mathematics and statistics at the

University of Vermont The University of Vermont (UVM), officially the University of Vermont and State Agricultural College, is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Burlington, Vermont. It was founded in 1791 and is amon ...

. Archdeacon was born on May 11, 1954, in

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...

, and grew up in

Centerville, Ohio Centerville is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States. A core suburb of Metro Dayton, its population was 24,240 as of the 2020 census. Geography Centerville is located at (39.638709, -84.148087). Although the city is located primar ...

. He did his undergraduate studies at

Earlham College Earlham College is a private liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. The college was established in 1847 by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and has a strong focus on Quaker values such as integrity, a commitment to peace and social ...

, graduating in 1975. He completed his Ph.D. in 1980 from

Ohio State University 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 publ ...

, under the supervision of Henry Hatfield Glover, with a dissertation proving an analogue of

Kuratowski's theorem In graph theory, Kuratowski's theorem is a mathematical forbidden graph characterization of planar graphs, named after Kazimierz Kuratowski. It states that a finite graph is planar if and only if it does not contain a subgraph that is a subdivi ...

for the

projective plane In mathematics, a projective plane is a geometric structure that extends the concept of a plane. In the ordinary Euclidean plane, two lines typically intersect in a single point, but there are some pairs of lines (namely, parallel lines) that do ...

. He took a position at the University of Vermont in 1982, joining fellow graph theorist and Ohio State graduate

Jeff Dinitz Jeffrey Howard Dinitz (born 1952) is an American mathematician who taught combinatorics at the University of Vermont. He is best known for proposing the Dinitz conjecture, which became a major theorem. Dinitz is married to Susan Dinitz and has t ...

, after previously working as an instructor at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

. He died of cancer on February 18, 2015, in

Burlington, Vermont Burlington is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the seat of Chittenden County. It is located south of the Canada–United States border and south of Montreal. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 44,743. It ...

. In 2003–2004, the University of Vermont named him as University Scholar. A special issue of the ''

Australasian Journal of Combinatorics The ''Australasian Journal of Combinatorics'' is a triannual peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal covering combinatorics. It was established in 1990 and is published by the Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Computing (University of Que ...

'' was published in his honor in 2017.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Archdeacon, Dan 1954 births 2015 deaths People from Dayton, Ohio 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Graph theorists Earlham College alumni Ohio State University Graduate School alumni University of Kansas faculty University of Vermont faculty Mathematicians from Ohio Deaths from cancer in Vermont