Thomas H. Brylawski
American mathematician
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Thomas Henry Brylawski (June 17, 1944 – July 18, 2007) was an American mathematician and professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He worked primarily in matroid theory.
June 17, 1944
Thomas H. Brylawski | |
|---|---|
Tom Brylawski (from the Oberwolfach Photo Collection) | |
| Born | Thomas Henry Brylawski June 17, 1944 Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Died | July 18, 2007 (aged 63) |
| Other name | Tom Brylawski |
| Education | |
| Known for | Matroid theory |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics |
| Workplaces | University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill |
| Thesis | The Tutte–Grothendieck Ring (1970) |
| |
Doctoral students | Jenny McNulty |
Education and career
Brylawski was born in 1944, and grew up in Washington, D.C.[1][2] He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate degree, finishing with a Bachelor of Science in 1966. He then went on to Dartmouth College for his graduate work. He completed his PhD under the direction of Gian-Carlo Rota and Robert Norman in 1970.[3] After his PhD, he moved to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he spent the rest of his career.[4][1]
Brylawski was an editor for the Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society from 1977 until 1989.[5] Brylawski wrote 40 mathematical publications,[6] and advised 6 PhD students.[3]
He died in 2007 of esophageal cancer at the Duke Hospice inpatient facility in Hillsborough, North Carolina.[2]
Work
Brylawski's early work used ideas and tools from category theory to understand the Tutte polynomial of a matroid. Indeed, this idea already appeared in his thesis, which made constructions in matroid theory similar to the Grothendieck group.[7][8] He developed similar ideas in two papers in the Transactions of the American Mathematical Society.[1][9][10] Another influential early paper of Brylawski's, published in the same journal, described the influence of a modular element in the lattice of flats on the characteristic polynomial of a matroid.[1][11]
Brylawski also contributed expository chapters to several matroid theory books that appeared in the Encyclopedia of Mathematics and its Applications series published by Cambridge University Press.[1] The Tutte polynomial chapter (written jointly with James Oxley) has around 500 citations.[12]
In addition to his work in matroid theory, Brylawski also had an interest in mathematics in art, particularly in the role of symmetry in art.[1] He gave lectures on mathematics in art on two occasions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.[13][14]
Awards and honors
A memorial conference was held in honor of Brylawski in October 2008 at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,[1] and a special issue of the European Journal of Combinatorics in 2011 was dedicated as a tribute to the work of Brylawski.[15]