Felix Browder

Felix Browder
Felix Browder in 1982
Born	(1927-07-31)July 31, 1927 Moscow, Russia
Died	December 10, 2016(2016-12-10) (aged 89) Princeton, New Jersey
Nationality	United States
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Rutgers University University of Chicago Yale University M.I.T
Alma mater	Princeton University class of 1948 M.I.T class of 1946
Doctoral advisor	Solomon Lefschetz Witold Hurewicz
Doctoral students	Luis Medeiros 1956 Peter Greiner Yale 1964 Richard Beals Melvyn Berger Bui Ton 1964 M.I.T et. al.
Known for	non-linear Functional Analysis
Notable awards	recipient of National Medal of Science 1999

Princeton University
class of 1948

Luis Medeiros 1956
Peter Greiner Yale 1964
Richard Beals
Melvyn Berger

Felix Earl Browder (/ˈbraʊdər/; July 31, 1927 – December 10, 2016) was an American mathematician known for his work in nonlinear functional analysis.

Browder was born in Moscow, Russia. His parents were Earl Browder, an American immigrant to the Soviet Union, and Raissa Berkmann, a Soviet Jew. He was a child prodigy who entered MIT at age 17 in 1944 and graduated in 1946 with his first degree in mathematics. At MIT he achieved the rank of a Putnam Fellow in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition. In 1948 (at age 20), he received his doctorate from Princeton University.

Prior to arriving at Rutgers University in 1986 as its first vice president for research, he headed the University of Chicago's mathematics department for 12 years, and also held posts at MIT, Boston University, Brandeis and Yale.

Browder was the recipient of the 1999 National Medal of Science. He also served as president of the American Mathematical Society from 1999 to 2000.

He was known for his personal library which contained some thirty five thousand books. "The library has a number of different categories," he said. "There is mathematics, physics and science as well as philosophy, literature and history, with a certain number of volumes of contemporary political science and economics. It is a polymath library. I am interested in everything and my library reflects all my interests."