Griffith Conrad Evans

Any opinions expressed in this memoir are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Academy of Sciences. University of Rome on a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship from Harvard. He began his teaching career in 1912 as assistant professor of mathematics at the newly established Rice Institute , now Rice University, in Houston, Texas. He became professor there in 1916 and remained with the Institute until 1934. While he was at Rice, he was able to attract outstanding mathematicians, such as Professor Mandelbrojt of the University of Paris, and young mathematicians, such as Tibor Rado and Carl Menger, to Rice as visiting professors. Long before Evans left Rice it was internationally known as a center of mathematical research. Evans was brought to the University of California at Berkeley in 1934 as a result of a nationwide search; he arrived with a mandate to build up the Department of Mathematics in the same way that Gilbert Lewis had already built the chemistry faculty. Evans struggled with himself to effect the necessary changes with justice. His innate sense of fairness , modesty, and tact, as well as his stature as a scientist, 127 128 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS brought eminent success. By the time he retired in 1954, he had had the satisfaction of seeing the department evolve into one of the country's major centers of mathematical activity. His retirement did not diminish his interest in science nor subtract from his pleasure at seeing others achieve goals he cherished. A few years before World War II, Professor Evans and others on the Berkeley campus recognized the importance of the fields of probability and statistics, and Professor Jerzy Neyman was brought to that campus by Evans in 1939 to organize the Statistical Laboratory. A period of rapid growth followed; by the close of World War II the Laboratory had transformed Berkeley into one of the three principal centers of probability and statistics in the country. The size and importance of the Laboratory continued to grow, and a separate Department of Statistics was established in 1955. Shortly after coming to Berkeley, Professor Evans inaugurated a seminar in mathematical economics, which he graciously held in his home once a week. This seminar became internationally known, providing an inspirational educational activity and establishing a tradition of mathematical economics on the Berkeley campus that continues to the present. The seminar was attended by both …