Thomas W. Hungerford

Thomas William Hungerford (March 21, 1936 – November 28, 2014) was an American mathematician who worked in algebra and mathematics education. He is the author or coauthor of several widely used and widely cited textbooks covering high-school to graduate-level mathematics. From 1963 until 1980, he taught at the University of Washington and then at Cleveland State University until 2003. From 2003–2014 he was at Saint Louis University. Hungerford had a special interest in promoting the use of technology to teach mathematics.

Early life and career Hungerford was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1936. At age 16, he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he attended St. Louis University High School and graduated as the valedictorian of his high school class. As an undergraduate at Holy Cross, he wrote a senior thesis on topological space.

Throughout his career he wrote more than a dozen widely used mathematics textbooks, ranging from high school to graduate level.