CURRICULUM VITAE
W. Wistar Comfort

Demographic Information:

Office:Wesleyan University Middletown, CT 06459
Phone: 860-685-2632
e-mail: wcomfort@wesleyan.edu
Home address: 3 Ball Lane, Old Lyme, CT 06371
Phone: 860-347-0866
Birth: Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; April 19, 1933
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Married: March 30, 1957, to Mary Constance Lyon; two children

Education:

B. A. Haverford College, 1954 with honors in Mathematics
M. Sc. University of Washington (Seattle), 1957
Ph. D. University of Washington (Seattle), 1958
Dissertation: The {\v{S}}ilov boundary induced by a certain Banach algebra
M.A. (hon.) Wesleyan University, 1969

Professional History:

1958--1961 Harvard University, Peirce Instructor
1961--1965 University of Rochester, Assistant Professor
1965--1967 University of Massachusetts (Amherst), Associate Professor
1967--present Wesleyan University, Professor
1982--present Edward Burr Van Vleck Professor of Mathematics
1970--1971, 1980--1982 and 1996--1997 Chairman, Department of Mathematics

Visiting Positions: University of Arkansas; McGill University, Canada;
University of Heidelberg, Germany; Instituto Matematico, Pisa, Italy;
Athens University, Greece; University of Sao Paolo, Brazil (1983);
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam; University of Sao Paolo (1999).

Doctoral Dissertations Directed:

Stelios A. Negrepontis, A homology theory for realcompact spaces, University of Rochester, 1965.
Norman L. Noble, $k$-spaces and some generalizations, University of Rochester, 1967.
Neil Hindman, On $P$-like spaces and their product with $P$-spaces, Wesleyan University, 1969.
Milton Don Ulmer, Continuous functions on product spaces, Wesleyan University, 1970.
Victor Saks, Countably compact groups, Wesleyan University, 1972.
Liam O'Callaghan, Topological endohomeomorphisms and generalized $\Sigma$-products, Wesleyan University, 1975.
Teklehaimanot Retta, $\alpha$-compactness and density character, Wesleyan University, 1977.
Charles Frank Waiveris, Jr., Intersections of countably compact spaces, Wesleyan University, 1979.
Thomas Joseph Peters, Remote points, products and $G$-spaces, Wesleyan University, 1982.
George Baloglou, Compact-covering numbers, Wesleyan University, 1986.
Salvador Garcia-Ferreira, Various orderings on the space of ultrafilters, Wesleyan University, 1989.
Francisco Javier Trigos-Arrieta, Pseudocompactness on groups, Wesleyan University, 1991.
Haoxuan Zhou, Homogeneity properties and power spaces, Wesleyan University, 1993.
Oscar E. Masaveu, Dense subsets of some topological groups, Wesleyan University, 1995.
Jack Widman, Groups and algebras: convergence and order, Wesleyan University, 1997 [Co-director: Lewis C. Robertson].
Sophia U. Raczkowski-Trigos, Totally bounded groups, Wesleyan University, 1998.
Luis Recoder Nu{\~{n}}ez, Three classes of dense subsets in products, Wesleyan University, 2001.
Wanjun Hu, Independent families and some applications, Wesleyan University, 2002.

 

Invited Addresses and Colloquia:

Univ. Michigan; Univ. Rochester; Fordham Univ.; Univ. Connecticut; Clark Univ.; Southern Illinois Univ.; Univ. Arkansas; NSF Summer Institute Graduation (Fayetteville, Arkansas); Univ. Massachusetts; Univ. Buffalo; New Mexico State Univ.; Univ. Maryland; Univ. New Hampshire; McGill Univ.; Syracuse Univ.; Wesleyan Univ.; Clemson Univ.; Univ. Kentucky; Amherst College; Univ. Houston; Smith College; Univ. Rochester; Connecticut Valley Colloquium (Smith College); Vassar College; Yale Univ.; Math. Assoc. Amer. New England Regional Meeting; Western Michigan Univ.; Kent State Univ.; Amherst College; Univ. North Carolina; SUCAS at Plattsburgh; Ithaca College; Cornell Univ.; Pittsburgh International Topological Symposium; Connecticut College; Edmonton Univ. (Alberta); Carleton Univ. (Ottawa); Univ. Manitoba; Wellesley College; Dalhousie Univ. (Halifax); North Carolina State Univ.; Union College; Rome (Italy) Symposium on Topological Groups; Univ. of Heidelberg; Bolyai Janos Society (Budapest); SUCAS Plattsburgh; Canadian Summer Research Intitute (Halifax); Union College Conference; New England Section, Math. Assoc. Amer.; New York Academy of Sciences; Univ. Rochester; Univ. North Carolina-Greensboro; Amer. Mathematical Society Eastern Regional Meeting; Fourth Prague Topological Symposium; Rhode Island College; Topology Conference (LSU); SUNY at Buffalo; Athens (Greece) Univ.; Greek Mathematical Soc.; Math. Institute Acad. Sci. Prague; Math. Institute Acad. Sci. Budapest; Univ. Thessaloniki (Greece); McGill Univ.; Acadia Univ.;
Univ. Rhode Island; Howard Univ.; Univ. Toronto; York Univ.; Instituto Mat. Univ. Nacional Autonoma de Mexico; Univ. Autonoma Metropolitana-Istapalapa; Facultad Ciencias UNAM (Mexico City); Centro Investigacion y Estudios Avanzados (Mexico City); Univ. Toledo; Instituto Matematicas Guanajuato (Mexico); City College/CUNY; Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, Wesleyan Univ.; Univ. Hartford; Eger (Hungary) Topological Symposium; Univ. Sao Paolo (Brazil); Stefan Banach Center (Warsaw, Poland); City College/CUNY; Primorsko (Bulgaria) Topological School; Swarthmore College; Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam); Southampton University (England); Choate-Rosemary Hall; SUNY at Purchase; City College/CUNY; Univ. of Rhode Island; Choate-Rosemary Hall; New England Set Theory Seminar (Smith College); Univ. of Washington (Seattle); City College/CUNY; Caribbean Mathematical Foundation (Curacao); Temple Univ.; Ohio State Univ.; Northeastern Topology Conference (Long Island Univ.); Ramanujan Institute (Madras); Madurai Kamaraj Univ. (India); Cochin Univ. (India); Univ. of Hyderabad (India); National Singapore Univ.; Univ. of New Hampshire; Univ. Bremen; Univ. Hannover; Technische Hochschule Darmstadt; Univ. Wisconsin; Technische Hochschule Munchen; Ludwig-Maximilian Univ.; Freie Univ. Berlin; Prague Topological Symposium; Kansas State Univ.; Southern Topology Conference (Columbia, South Carolina); Eleventh Escuela Latinoamericana de Matematicas (Mexico City); Kansas State University; University of Stellenbosch (South Africa); Univ. Western Cape (South Africa); Symposium on Categorical Topology (University of Cape Town, South Africa); Osaka Kyoiku University (Japan); Conference on Topology, Ehime University, Matsuyama (Japan); Melbourne Univ. (Australia); Univ. of Wollongong (Australia); Univ. of Otago (New Zealand); Univ. of Wellington (New Zealand); Auckland University (New Zealand); I IberoAmericano Congreso (Benicassim, Spain); Univ. Jaume I (Castellon, Spain); Univ. Valencia (Spain); Vrije Universiteit (Amsterdam); Technical Univ. Delft; St. Edmund Hall, Oxford Univ.; Univ. L'Aquila (Italy); Univ. Hannover; York Univ. (Toronto); Temple Univ. (Philadelphia); Caribbean Mathematical Society (Curacao); Kansas State University; Queens College/CUNY; Spring (1997) Topology Conference (Louisiana); Univ. Hannover; Seminar Sophus Lie (Univ. Greifswald); St. Louis Univ.; Univ. Hannover; Univ. Sao Paolo; Universit `a di Padova; Universit `a di Udine; Universit `a di Trieste; College of Staten Island

Professional Activities:

With American Mathematical Society:

  1. Editor in Topology of the Proceedings, 1971--1974.
  2. Managing Editor of the Proceedings, 1973--1974.
  3. Nominating Committee of the Executive Committee, 1976.
  4. Member of the Council, 1971--1974, 1982--1993.
  5. Chairman, ad-hoc Committee to Explore Research Fellowships, 1972.
  6. Organizer, Special Session on Set-theoretic and combinatorial methods in topology, Annual Meeting 1975.
  7. Member, Committee on Committees, 1975--1977.
  8. Invited address, Eastern Meeting, 1976.
  9. Teller, 1979 Election.
  10. Member, Committee to Monitor Problems in Communication,1980--1986;
    Chairman, 1982--1983.
  11. Member, Joint Meetings Planning Committee, AMS-MAA, 1987--1993.
  12. Associate Secretary (Eastern Region), 1982--1993.
  13. Member, Centennial Celebration Committee, 1993--1995.
  14. Member, National Meetings Study Committee, 1993--1995.

Other:

  1. Advisory Board, Topology Proceedings, 1976--present.
  2. Associate Editor, American Mathematical Monthly, 1983--1986.
  3. Editorial Board, Karachi Journal of Mathematics, 1984--present.
  4. International Advisory Board, Mathematica Japonica, 1992--present.
  5. Editorial Board, Topology and its Applications, 1993--present.
  6. Member, Coordinating Council on Meetings, Mathematical Association of America, 1997--2001.
  7. Member, Summer Topological Conferences Organizing Committee, 1998--2003.
  8. Reviewer for: Mathematical Reviews; Zentralblatt fur Matematik.
  9. Member of: American Mathematical Society; Mathematical Association of America; Connecticut Academy of Science
A list of publications follows.