Emeritus & Adjunct Faculty
Honoring our Passed
We continue to remember them fondly. These people all made strides in their fields, and we look forward to the future they helped forge.
Richard J. Bagby |
Richard J. Bagby came to NMSU in 1968 after completing his PhD at Rice. He was an excellent mathematician and a fixture in our analysis group for many decades. He served as acting Department head for one year. Dick retired in 2003. Afterward, he and his wife Susan split time between Las Cruces and Cleveland where one of his two children live. Dick became ill a couple of years ago and his illness returned recently. |
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Philip Hosford |
Dr. Hosford earned his doctorate in education in 1963 from the University of Northern Colorado. After 10 years serving in public education in Roswell, New Mexico, Phil and Val moved to Las Cruces where Phil was a professor of education and mathematics at New Mexico State University for 25 years. During his tenure, he published two textbooks and was awarded the Westhafer Award for excellence in teaching in 1981. |
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Don Johnson |
Don’s first paper was in 1960 on lattice-ordered rings, his last was in 2017 on archimedean l-groups. Don received his Bachelor’s degree from Albion College, his Master’s degree from Michigan State University, and his Doctorate under Melvin Henriksen from Purdue University. He began his professorial career as a mathematics professor at Penn State University in 1959. In 1965, he joined the Department of Mathematical Sciences at New Mexico State University and retired from there in 1988. He was an internationally respected research mathematician, having published widely, but among his proudest professional accomplishments was establishing the Math Learning Center at NMSU. |
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Joseph Kist |
Dr. Kist received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Purdue University in the 1950s. He then went on to teach at the Pennsylvania State University and finally at New Mexico State University. He was proud of his work as a mathematician, both as a researcher and teacher. He had supported the daughter of his parents’ caretaker, Maria Damarise up until his passing. Before Damarise started kindergarten, Dr. Kist quietly took on the role of her reading coach, math tutor and academic cheerleader; this continued throughout her schooling, and even helped her attend college. |
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Arthur Kruse |
Art received his Ph.D. in 1956 from the U. of Chicago under the guidance of one of the major figures of 20th century mathematics, Saunders Mac Lane. His dissertation was titled “Introduction to the theory of Block Assemblages and Development in the Theory of Retraction”. After spending several years at the University of Kansas, Art joined NMSU in 1960. Art retired in 1995 and worked regularly in his office in Walden Hall for many years after that. Art had 7 doctoral students including Edward Gaughan, who was also a long-time member of the NMSU Department of Mathematical Sciences. |
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Fred Richman |
Fred earned his PhD from the University of Chicago in 1963 under Irving Kaplansky and came to NMSU soon afterwards. He was a prominent member of our department for many decades. After retiring from NMSU, Fred went on to another successful career at Florida Atlantic for many more years, with his most recent PhD student graduating in 2018. Fred has over 140 papers on topics in algebra and foundations. Among his primary coauthors were Elbert Walker, Ray Mines, Bill Julian and Roger Hunter. |
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John Selden |
John Selden retired to New Mexico with his wife Annie Selden in the early 2000’s. John was passionate about mathematics. He was often absorbed in research about mathematics, loved teaching, and thoroughly enjoyed his joint research in mathematics education with Annie. They formed a well-known team that worked in math education for many years prior to their retirement, and continued their work as adjuncts in our department. John and Annie regularly volunteered to teach a course on proving mathematics to entering graduate students in our department, and helped many of our graduate students on their path. This course was part of their ongoing research into understanding what helps students transition into understanding higher-level mathematics. As a partial indication of their accomplishments, through the Mathematical Association of America, John and Annie established the Selden Prize for Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education to elevate the field and encourage young researchers. |
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Caroline Sweezy |
Caroline was not with us for very long, but she made an impact. She was very interested in physics, and wrote many publications in differential equations. Caroline Sweezy was an active researcher throughout her career. She spent part of her sabbatical at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, California. She was twice awarded the Department of Mathematical Sciences Summer Research Award.
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Elbert A. Walker |
He earned his B.A. in 1950 and M.A. in 1952, in Mathematics, from Sam Houston State College; a Ph.D. in Mathematics from University of Kansas in 1955; and an M.S. in Statistics in 1978 from Colorado State University. Elbert joined the faculty of New Mexico State University in 1957. He was a prolific and brilliant mathematician, who taught countless students including 13 Ph.D. students. He was a National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellow, 1963-1964, and received many research grants from the National Science Foundation. He won several awards, including the Westhafer Award for Research in 1965 (New Mexico State University's award to its outstanding faculty researcher of that year). He authored or coauthored numerous books, 95 research papers, and 65 surveys and abstracts, including several with his wife Dr. Carol Walker, primarily in the areas of Abelian Group Theory, Lattice Theory, and Fuzzy Logic. |
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Carol L. Walker |
Carol and Elbert Walker were primary figures in the department for many decades. Beginning in the 1960’s, they were key ingredients in large scale grants that brought about rapid expansion and helped transform us into a thriving research department. Many of our emeritus faculty came aboard during these years. Later, Carol served as Department Head from 1979 - 1993 overseeing a department with 32-34 tenure-track faculty. Carol then moved to Associate Dean for our College. Carol did a great deal of service and administration in the benefit of others but always remained a research mathematician. She was the first female PhD graduate from NMSU, authoring her first paper with Elbert in 1962 “Splitting properties of high subgroups” and her last with me in 2020 “A typos view of the type-2 fuzzy truth value algebra”. MathSciNet lists 44 of her publications, ResearchGate lists 77 publications and over 2400 citations. Many of these publications were textbooks, and often well-used, such as the book “A first course in fuzzy logic” with Elbert and Hung Nguyen. More detail on Carol can be found in her Wikipedia page: |
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Linda W. Zimmerman |
Linda was a College Professor with many years in our department. When the family returned to Las Cruces in 2000, Linda began teaching at NMSU, first in economics and then full-time for the Department of Mathematics. Though hired initially as an Instructor, over the years due to her hard work and many skills, she rose through the ranks until she attained the highest rank in the non-tenure track, that of College Professor. She cared deeply about her students and worked many hours helping them to become successful in her math classes. Linda was a very well-liked instructor that was dedicated to her students. For several years Linda battled serious illness, but remained upbeat and positive and was excited when she was able to spend the semester with her students. |
