Originally Posted: Feb. 7, 2019
Richard Haberman, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, 1978-2015
We are very sad to have to report that Richard Haberman passed away on December 31, 2018.
Richard (Rich) was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1945, and grew up on Long Island. He received his BS (1967) and PhD (1971) at MIT. After a postdoc at UC San Diego and stints at Rutgers and The Ohio State, Rich spent the bulk of his career at Southern Methodist University (SMU).
During his time as a graduate student, he met Mark Ablowitz, both of whom had the same advisor David Benney. Rich and Mark established a strong friendship that lasted until Rich’s passing. They also co-authored papers which mark the start of Rich’s contributions to nonlinear waves. In line with the times they worked on ways to generate isospectral flows which are equivalent to systems of nonlinear partial differential equations, including extensions to two and three dimensions, where as we know there are fewer known integrable models. The role of linear and nonlinear resonances leading to “universal” evolution equations is best seen in their 1975 Journal of Mathematical Physics paper “Resonantly coupled nonlinear evolution equations”. It is perhaps this aspect that points to the ease in which Rich’s work blends nonlinear waves and dynamical systems in a natural way. According to Mark Ablowitz, “We have lost a remarkable person. Rich was an outstanding mathematician/educator who, in my opinion, was underappreciated. Apart from other important research … his doctoral thesis on stability of fluids and subsequent work was very significant and clarified much of what had been done earlier.” READ MORE