Masatoşi Gündüz İkeda

Masatoşi Gündüz İkeda (25 February 1926 – 9 February 2003), was a Japanese-born Turkish mathematician known for his contributions to the field of algebraic number theory.

Early years Ikeda was born on 25 February 1926 in Tokyo, Japan, to Junzo Ikeda, head of the statistics department of an insurance company, and his wife Yaeko Ikeda. He was the youngest child with a brother and two sisters. He grew up reading mathematics books belonging to his father. During his school years, he bought himself used books about mathematics and the life story of mathematicians. He was very impressed by the French mathematician Évariste Galois (1811–1832).

Academic career Ikeda graduated from the mathematics department of Osaka University in 1948. He received a PhD degree with his thesis "On Absolutely Segregated Algebras", written in 1953 under the direction of Kenjiro Shoda. He was appointed associate professor in 1955. He pursued scientific research at the University of Hamburg in Germany, under the supervision of Helmut Hasse (1898–1979) between 1957 and 1959. On a suggestion from Hasse, he went to Turkey in 1960 and landed at Ege University in İzmir. In 1961, he was appointed a foreigner specialist in the Faculty of Science at the same university.

In 1964, Ikeda married Turkish biochemist Emel Ardor, whom he met and followed to Turkey. He was naturalized, converted to Islam and adopted the Turkish name Gündüz. He became associate professor in 1965 and a full professor in 1966. In 1968, with permission of the university, he went to the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara as a visiting professor for one year. However, following the end of his term, he was offered a permanent post as a full professor, which he accepted upon the proposal of the mathematician Cahit Arf, whom he had known since his early years in Turkey.