James Ashley Donaldson (April 17, 1941 — October 18, 2019) was an American mathematician. He was a professor at Howard University, where he was instrumental in establishing a PhD program in mathematics. He also helped found the

National Association of Mathematicians The National Association of Mathematicians is a professional association for mathematicians in the US, especially African Americans and other minorities. It was founded in 1969.

Education and career

Donaldson was born in on April 17, 1941, on a farm near Tallahassee, Florida, where he grew up attending

segregated school Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into racial or other ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crime against humanity under the Statute of the Interna ...

s. In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education, he took the advice of his high school mathematics teacher to attend college in the

northern United States The Northern United States, commonly referred to as the American North, the Northern States, or simply the North, is a geographical or historical region of the United States. History Early history Before the 19th century westward expansion, the "N ...

, where he attended Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After graduating from Lincoln with a AB in mathematics in 1961, he moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign for his graduate work, where he completed an MS degree in 1963, and a PhD in 1965. His PhD thesis on partial differential equations was titled ''Integral Representations of the Extended Airy Integral Type for the Modified Bessel Function'', and was supervised by Ray Gartner Langebartel. Following his PhD, Donaldson had short term appointments at

Southern University Southern University and A&M College (Southern University, Southern, SUBR or SU) is a public historically black land-grant university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It is the largest historically black college or university (HBCU) in Louisiana, a ...

, Howard University, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of New Mexico. He returned to Howard University in 1971 as a professor, where he remained for most of the rest of his career. He served as chair of the mathematics department at Howard from 1972 until 1990, in which role he was instrumental in developing a PhD program in mathematics. Howard's program, established in 1976, was the first PhD program in mathematics at a

historically black college or university Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the intention of primarily serving the African-American community. Mo ...

. In the 1998—1999 school year, Donaldson took a leave of absence from Howard to serve as the acting president of Lincoln University, his undergraduate alma mater. He returned to Howard in 1999, and from that year until 2012 he served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Donaldson retired and was granted emeritus status in 2013.

Organizational work

In 1969, Donaldson was one of the founding members of the

, the professional society promoting mathematical development of underrepresented minorities. He served as the first editor of the newsletter of that organization, and was a member of its board of directors from 1984 to 1994.

Death

Donaldson died of heart disease on October 18, 2019, at his home in Washington, D.C.

Awards and honors

In 2018, Donaldson received an honorary doctoral degree from his former undergraduate institution, Lincoln University. In 2021, a Special Session in Donaldson's honor was held at the

Joint Mathematics Meetings The Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) is a mathematics conference hosted annually in early January by the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Frequently, several other national mathematics organizations also participate. The meeting is the largest g ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Donaldson, James A. 1941 births 2019 deaths Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni Howard University faculty 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians African-American mathematicians 20th-century African-American people 21st-century African-American people