Jan-Erik Roos

Jan-Erik Ingvar Roos (16 October 1935 – 15 December 2017) was a Swedish mathematician whose research interests were in abelian category theory, homological algebra, and related areas.

He was born in Halmstad, in the province of Halland on the Swedish west coast. Later that year he went to Paris on a doctoral scholarship; In 1967 he was invited by Saunders Mac Lane to visit the University of Chicago for three months; Mac Lane was impressed by Roos and later wrote a very positive letter of recommendation for him.

Upon his return to Sweden, Roos was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Stockholm University in 1970, and started building a strong algebra school. While serving on the Academy, he was on the committees deciding the Rolf Schock Prizes in Mathematics and the Crafoord Prize in Astronomy and Mathematics.

Roos made important contributions to homological algebra, and did extensive computer-assisted studies of Hilbert–Poincaré series and their rationality. A special issue of the journal Homology, Homotopy and Applications ("The Roos Festschrift volume") was published in 2002, on the occasion of his 65th birthday.

He died on 15 December 2017 at his home in Uppsala and is buried at the Uppsala old cemetery.

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