Walter L. Craig (1953 – January 18, 2019) was a Canadian mathematician and a

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in Mathematical Analysis and Applications at McMaster University.

Personal life

Craig was born in State College, Pennsylvania in 1953. His father, a professor at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

transferred to

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, which is where Craig and his siblings were raised starting in 1959. Craig was the son of the logician William Craig and the husband of mathematician Deirdre Haskell.

Education

Craig attended the University of California at Berkeley and, after spending two years performing as a jazz musician, returned there to graduate with a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1977. Craig earned his Ph.D. from New York University - Courant Institute in 1981; his dissertation, ''A Bifurcation Theory for Periodic Dissipative Wave Equations'', was supervised by Louis Nirenberg.

Career

After stints at the California Institute of Technology,

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, and

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

, Craig moved to McMaster University in

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

, Canada in 2000. His research topic included

nonlinear partial differential equation In mathematics and physics, a nonlinear partial differential equation is a partial differential equation with nonlinear system, nonlinear terms. They describe many different physical systems, ranging from gravitation to fluid dynamics, and have be ...

, infinite dimensional Hamiltonian systems, Schrödinger operators and

spectral theory In mathematics, spectral theory is an inclusive term for theories extending the eigenvector and eigenvalue theory of a single square matrix to a much broader theory of the structure of operators in a variety of mathematical spaces. It is a result o ...

, water waves,

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

, and

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

. In 2007, he was made a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

and he was awarded a Killiam Fellowship in 2009. In 2013, he became one of the inaugural

s of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved April 12, 2017 He served as Director of the

Fields Institute The Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, commonly known simply as the Fields Institute, is an international centre for scientific research in mathematical sciences. It is an independent non-profit with strong ties to 20 Ontari ...

from 2013 to 2015.

References

1953 births 2019 deaths People from State College, Pennsylvania McMaster University faculty Canadian mathematicians Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Fellows of the American Mathematical Society UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni New York University alumni {{mathematician-stub