in memoriam

It is with deep sadness that we report the passing of Joshua Sumpter, who obtained his Ph.D. from our Department under the direction of Sasha Soshnikov in 2021.  Josh is remembered by his fellow graduate students for his inquiring mind, and as a conscientious teaching assistant and promising colleague by his professors.  He had gone on to a postdoc at the University of Rochester.  He is survived by his wife, Erica.  

Josh’s memorial service was May 16 at 11 am with a celebration of life to follow at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Cloverdale, CA.

We mourn the passing of our colleague Craig Tracy. 

Craig Tracy was an American mathematician known for his contributions to mathematical physics and probability theory. Born in 1945 in England to a British mother and an American father, Craig was raised on a farm in Missouri. After obtaining a B.Sc. in Physics from University of Missouri (1967), he studied at Stony Brook University, where he obtained a Ph.D. in Physics with the thesis Spin-Spin Scale-Functions in the Ising and XY-Models (1973), advised by Barry M. McCoy. 

Roger J-B Wets was a Distinguished Research Professor of Mathematics at UC Davis, who passed away in April 2025. He was well regarded as an inspiring mathematician and described by his students as an amazing mentor. He guided nineteen students to their Ph.D. and developed a Mathematical Finance course for our Department. Collaborators talk of both his brilliance at research, but also his kindness, good humor, and thoughtful personality.  

Some of us recall Gary Kurowski, who passed away peacefully at his home on July 26, 2022. Gary was born on March 22, 1931 in Fargo, North Dakota. Summer vacations consisted of spending time at the family cabin on the lake. These experiences instilled a life-long love of being near water. Gary attended schools in Fargo, and then continued his studies at the University of Minnesota, where he graduated in 1954. Like many young men at the time, he was drafted into the army during the Korean War. After his required two years in the army, Gary returned to the study of mathematics.

Our colleague Washek Pfeffer passed away on January 3, 2021, he was 84. Born in Prague as Václav Franticek Pfeffer on November 14, 1936, he changed his name to Washek Pfeffer when he became a US citizen in 1970. He joined the UC Davis Department of Mathematics in 1966, retiring in 1994.

One of Washek’s middle school classmates later rose to prominence, Václav Havel, the famous playwright and President of Czechoslovakia (1989-1992) and of the Czech Republic (1993-2003). Washek and Václav became close friends in the 1950s.

Our colleague Donald C. Benson died on May 2, 2019, at age 91. Born on June 6, 1927, in Los Angeles, he studied at UCLA and later Stanford, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1954 under the guidance of Charles Loewner. After teaching at Princeton University and Carnegie Tech (now known as Carnegie Mellon University), he joined the UC Davis Department of Mathematics in 1957, retiring in 1983.

John Chuchel died May 19 after a long illness. He was 80.

Born in Winona, Minn., John moved to Sacramento in 1979. A theoretical mathematician, he was educated at St. Mary’s College in Winona, Minn., the University of Minnesota and Montana State University under the advisor Norman Henry Eggert, Jr.

George Thomas Sallee died unexpectedly in the early evening of Saturday, June 15, 2019, at the UCD Medical Center of hemorrhagic stroke.

Tom was born in Nyssa, a little farming community in eastern Oregon on the banks of the Snake River. He worked in the sugar beet fields and packing shed, became an Eagle Scout, and enjoyed a very happy childhood. 

Professor Emeritus Melven Robert Krom passed away September 28, 2018. 

Melven received his Ph.D. in 1963 at the University of Michigan under John West Addison, Jr. with the dissertation Separation Principles in the Hierarchy Theory of Pure First-Order Logic. He joined the Department as a Lecturer in 1962, and was brought on as a professor the year after. During his time as a professor at UC Davis, his research focused on logic and set theory.