In Memoriam: Allan Edelson

We are sad to report the passing of Professor Emeritus Allan Leonard Edelson on May 25, 2014 due to complications relating to Alzheimer's. 

Allan studied at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate and completed a Ph.D at SUNY Stony Brook in 1969. He joined the UC Davis Mathematics Department shortly after in 1970 and played a key role in its growth in subsequent years. Besides being acknowledged as a very talented teacher and able to teach many of our courses, Professor Edelson was very active in his service efforts. He held leadership roles at the University, including serving as Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs from 1988-91 and Acting Vice Provost for Faculty Relations from 1991-92 as well as roles in Department committees, including Graduate Chair in 1999-2000. During his tenure at Davis, he traveled and held visiting positions at the University of Florence, EPFL Switzerland, University of Louvin-la-Neuve, Belgium and University of Orleans, France.

Professor Edelson's early work was concerned with the fixed sets of group actions on almost complex manifolds. Later, his work focused on nonlinear partial differential equations, particularly elliptic equations on unbounded domains. Such equations have applications in astromony and mathematical physics, and Allan found them interesting in their own right.

Allan retired in June 2003 after serving 34 years with the Department. Professor Edelson leaves behind three adult children, Daniel, Naomi, and Reuben, as well as four grandchildren, his mother Ione and his sister Donna.