Israel Herstein

Israel Herstein was a distinguished mathematician specializing in ring theory within the Mathematics department at the University of Chicago. Born on March 28, 1923, in Lublin, Poland, he emigrated to Canada with his family in 1926. He earned a B.A. from the University of Manitoba in 1945, an M.A. from the University of Toronto in 1946, and a Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1948, with a dissertation titled Divisor Algebras supervised by Max Zorn. Herstein's career began as an instructor at the University of Kansas from 1948 to 1950 and at Ohio State University from 1950 to 1951. He then served as Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Economics at the University of Chicago from 1951 to 1953, followed by positions at the University of Pennsylvania from 1953 to 1957 and as Professor at Cornell University from 1958 to 1962. In 1962, he returned to the University of Chicago as Professor of Mathematics, where he spent the remainder of his career until his death on February 9, 1988. During his tenure, he held a Guggenheim Fellowship for the 1960-1961 academic year and lectured extensively worldwide, including at the Brazilian Mathematics Colloquium in 1967.

Herstein's research interests encompassed ring theory, noncommutative rings, algebras, finite subgroups of division rings, Lie and Jordan structures in simple associative rings, group-rings, fields, skew fields, and applications of mathematics to economics. He authored over 100 research papers and several influential textbooks that became standards in the field, including Topics in Algebra (1964, second edition 1975), Noncommutative Rings (1968, Carus Mathematical Monographs), Rings with Involution (1976, Chicago Lectures in Mathematics), Matters Mathematical (1978, with Irving Kaplansky), and Abstract Algebra (1986). Notable papers include On the Lie ring of a simple ring (1954) and A counterexample in Noetherian rings (1965). He supervised 30 Ph.D. students, primarily at the University of Chicago, including Claudio Procesi, Susan Montgomery, Lance Small, and Murray Schacher, many of whom became prominent mathematicians. Herstein served on American Mathematical Society committees, including the Council from 1968 to 1970, edited journals, and significantly influenced ring theory through his papers, students, and textbooks renowned for their clarity and insightful exercises.