Person: Gorenstein, Daniel

Daniel Gorenstein was an American mathematician best known for his part in the classification of finite simple groups.

Gorenstein graduated in 1943 and, to contribute to the war effort, he accepted a teaching position at Harvard to teach mathematics to army personnel.
After the award of his doctorate in 1950 Gorenstein accepted a post at Clark University in 1951.
After five years at Northeastern, Gorenstein accepted a professorship at Rutgers University where he remained until his death.
At Rutgers, Gorenstein was chairman of the Mathematics Department from 1975 until 1981.
However it was Gorenstein who took an overview of the whole project and steered it to a successful conclusion.
If Gorenstein was the man with the best overview of this achievement, then surely we can do no better than to quote his own description of events.
Gorenstein's books on finite groups and the classification of finite simple groups are Finite groups (1968), Finite simple groups : an introduction to their classification (1982), The local structure of finite groups of characteristic 2 type (jointly written with Richard Lyons) (1983) and The classification of the finite simple groups (jointly written with Richard Lyons and Ronald Solomon) (1994).
Gorenstein received many honours for his work.
There are three Steele Prizes awarded and Gorenstein received the award for expository mathematical writing at the American Mathematical Society Summer Meeting in Boulder, Colorado, USA.

Born 1 January 1923, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Died 26 August 1992, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA.

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Group Theory, Origin Usa

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O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive