Donald B. Gillies

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For other people named Donald Gillies, see Donald Gillies (disambiguation).
Donald B. Gillies
Born
Donald Bruce Gillies

(1928-10-15)15 October 1928
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died17 July 1975(1975-07-17) (aged 46)
Urbana, Illinois, USA
NationalityCanadian
Alma materUniversity of Toronto
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Princeton University
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics, Computer Science
InstitutionsUniversity of Illinois,
Stanford (sabbatical),
Doctoral advisorJohn von Neumann

Donald Bruce Gillies (October 15, 1928 – July 17, 1975) was a Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who worked in the fields of computer design, game theory, and minicomputer programming environments.

Early life and education[]

Donald B. Gillies was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, to John Zachariah Gillies (a Canadian) and Anne Isabelle Douglas MacQueen (an American). He attended the University of Toronto Schools, a laboratory school originally affiliated with the University. Gillies attended the University of Toronto from 1946 to 1950, majoring in Mathematics.

He began his college education at the University of Illinois and helped with the checkout of Illiac I computer in the summer of 1951. He then transferred to Princeton to work for John von Neumann and developed the first theorems of "The core" in game theory in his PhD Thesis,[1] which is cited in many textbooks.

Gillies ranked among the top ten participants in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition held in 1950.[2]

Career[]

Gillies moved to England for two years to work for the National Research Development Corporation. He returned to the US in 1956, married Alice E. Dunkle,[3] and began a job as a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The Math Department at UIUC celebrated the new primes with a postal meter cancellation stamp — until Appel and Haken proved the 4-color theorem in 1976.

Gillies found three new Mersenne primes,[4] one of which was the largest prime number known at the time.[5]

Death and legacy[]

Gillies died unexpectedly at age 46 on July 17, 1975, of a rare viral myocarditis.

In 1975, the Donald B. Gillies Memorial lecture was established at the University of Illinois, with one leading researcher from computer science appearing every year. The first lecturer was Alan Perlis.[6]

In 2006, the Donald B. Gillies Chair Professorship was established in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois. Vikram Adve was invested as the second chair professor of the endowment in 2018.[7] The Department of Computer Science awarded a Memorial Achievement Award to Gillies in 2011.[8]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Gillies, Donald (1953). Some theorems in N-person games. Princeton University (Thesis). OCLC 19736643.
  2. ^ Bush, L. E. (1950). "The William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition". The American Mathematical Monthly. 57 (7): 467–470. doi:10.2307/2308299. ISSN 0002-9890. JSTOR 2308299.
  3. ^ Engagement Announcement (New York Times), Alice E. Dunkle is Betrothed to Donald Gillies, a Mathematician, December 10, 1955.
  4. ^ Gillies, Donald B. (Jan 1964). "Three new Mersenne primes and a statistical theory". Mathematics of Computation. 18 (5): 93–97. doi:10.2307/2003409. JSTOR 2003409.
  5. ^ "History Timeline". cs.illinois.edu. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  6. ^ "DONALD B. GILLIES MEMORIAL LECTURE". 2021-05-12.
  7. ^ "vikram adve invested donald b gillies professor computer science". 2018-04-15.
  8. ^ Memorial Achievement Award Archived 2015-03-18 at archive.today

External links[]

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