SCU Welcomes William Dunham as the 2026 Halmos Professor
William Dunham is a historian of mathematics who has written four books on the subject: Journey Through Genius, The Mathematical Universe, Euler: The Master of Us All, and The Calculus Gallery. He was the MAA’s George Pólya Lecturer from 2014 to 2016 and is featured in the Teaching Company’s DVD course “Great Thinkers, Great Theorems.” Most recently, he co-edited, along with Don Albers and Jerry Alexanderson, an anthology from Cambridge University Press titled The G. H. Hardy Reader.
Dunham earned his PhD from Ohio State University in 1974. His excellent expository writing has been recognized with five prizes from the MAA, including the Beckenbach Book Prize for Euler: The Master of Us All, and the 2022 Chauvenet Prize for his article, “The Early (and Peculiar) History of the Mobius Function” in Mathematics Magazine.
Since retiring from Muhlenberg College (emeritus, 2014), Dunham has held visiting positions at Harvard, Princeton, Penn, Cornell, and Bryn Mawr College. We welcome him for Winter/Spring 2026 as the Paul R. and Virginia P. Halmos Endowed Visiting Professor at Santa Clara University.