Donal B. O'Shea is a Canadian

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, who is also noted for his bestselling books. He served as the fifth president of

New College of Florida New College of Florida is a public university, public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Florida, United States. The college is a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. New College has the smallest student enrollment in the State U ...

Sarasota Sarasota () is a city in and the county seat of Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located in Southwest Florida, the southern end of the Tampa Bay area, and north of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda. Its official limits include Sarasota Ba ...

, from July 1, 2012, until June 30, 2021. He was succeeded by

Patricia Okker Patricia Ann Okker was named president of New College of Florida in 2021. She was previously a professor of English at the University of Missouri, where she focused her studies on American literature. Education and career Okker has a B.A. from ...

on July 1, 2021. Before coming to New College, he served in various roles at

Mount Holyoke College Mount Holyoke College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in South Hadley, Massachusetts, United States. It is the oldest member of the h ...

, including professor of mathematics, dean of faculty, and vice president for academic affairs. O'Shea graduated with a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, B.S., B.Sc., SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree that is awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Scienc ...

from

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

, and received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in mathematics from Queen's University in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...

in 1981; his thesis, titled ''On μ-Equivalent Families of Singularities'', was written under the direction of Albert John Coleman.

Bibliography

Some of his best known books are: * ''The Poincaré Conjecture: In Search of the Shape of the Universe''. The book has consistently received good reviews. * David A. Cox, John Little, and Donal O'Shea: ''Using algebraic geometry'',

Graduate Texts in Mathematics Graduate Texts in Mathematics (GTM) () is a series of graduate-level textbooks in mathematics published by Springer-Verlag. The books in this series, like the other Springer-Verlag mathematics series, are yellow books of a standard size (with va ...

, vol. 185, Springer-Verlag, 2005. * David A. Cox, John Little, and Donal O'Shea: ''Ideals, varieties, and algorithms: an introduction to computational algebraic geometry and commutative algebra'', 3rd. edition, Springer Verlag, 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:OShea, Donal Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century Canadian mathematicians 21st-century Canadian mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Harvard University alumni Queen's University at Kingston alumni Mount Holyoke College faculty Presidents of New College of Florida Algebraic geometers