Holbrook Mann MacNeille

Holbrook Mann MacNeille (May 11, 1907 – September 30, 1973) was an American mathematician who worked for the United States Atomic Energy Commission before becoming the first Executive Director of the American Mathematical Society.

MacNeille was born May 11, 1907 in New York City and was raised in Summit, New Jersey, the first of two brothers. His father was Perry Robinson MacNeille, an architect and urban planner and his mother Clausine Mann MacNeille who was active on the Summit Board of Education. His aunt was the Jungian analyst Kristine Mann.

MacNeille went to the Summit Public Schools and summered in Bailey Island, Maine. At Bailey Island he became acquainted with Frank Aydelotte who encouraged him to go to Swarthmore College from which he graduated with highest honors in 1928. Following in Aydelotte's footsteps he was a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, England 1928–1930 receiving a B.A. in 1930 and an M.A. in 1947. He received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Harvard University in 1935 where he was the first student of Marshall Harvey Stone, was a Sterling Fellow at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut 1935–1936 and a Benjamin Peirce Instructor at Harvard between 1936–1938. During the summers he was also a partner in the Dave Richardson Laboratories in Bailey Island, Maine, which produced dogfish prepared for dissection at school laboratories.