David Bressoud

David Marius Bressoud (born March 27, 1950, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) is an American mathematician who works in number theory, combinatorics, and special functions. As of 2019 he is DeWitt Wallace Professor of Mathematics at Macalester College, Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences and a former President of the Mathematical Association of America.

Life and education

Bressoud was born March 27, 1950, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He became interested in mathematics in the seventh grade, where he had a teacher who encouraged him and gave him challenging problems. He attended Albert Wilansky's National Science Foundation summer program at Lehigh University between his junior and senior years in high school, where he also spent most of his time working on problems.

He graduated from Swarthmore College in 1971. When he started at Swarthmore he had not yet decided on a major, but after his first year he decided to get out of college as quickly as possibly and had no interest in graduate school, and the quickest way out was to major in mathematics.

Career

After receiving his PhD, Bressoud taught at Pennsylvania State University from 1977 to 1994, reaching the rank of full professor in 1986. During this period he held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study (1979–1980), the University of Wisconsin (1980–81 and 1982), the University of Minnesota (1983 and 1998), and the University of Strasbourg (1984–85).

Bressoud received several of the Mathematical Association of America's awards: the Distinguished Teaching Award for the Allegheny Mountain section in 1994, the Beckenbach Book Prize in 1999, and he was a George Pólya Lecturer from 2002 to 2004.

Bressoud was elected president of the Mathematical Association of America in the 2007 elections, and served as President-Elect in 2008 and served as president from 2009 to 2011. In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He began phased retirement at Macalester College in 2016 and in 2017 took over the position of Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences from Ron Rosier, who had served in that capacity for 29 years.

Selected publications