Robert L. Devaney

Robert L. Devaney
Devaney in 1973
Born(1948-04-09)April 9, 1948
Lawrence, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedNovember 16, 2025(2025-11-16) (aged 77)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
EducationCollege of the Holy Cross (BA)
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields
WorkplacesNorthwestern University
Tufts University
Boston University
ThesisReversible diffeomorphisms and flows (1973)
Stephen Smale
President of the
Mathematical Association of America
In office
2013–2015
Preceded byPaul M. Zorn
Succeeded byFrancis Su

Robert Luke Devaney (April 9, 1948 – November 16, 2025) was an American mathematician known for his research in dynamical systems theory. He was the Feld Family Professor of Teaching Excellence at Boston University and served as the president of the Mathematical Association of America from 2013 to 2015.

Devaney's research spanned dynamical systems, celestial mechanics, and complex dynamics. He was among the first mathematicians to systematically study the dynamics of transcendental entire functions, and the fractal structures he described in their Julia sets became known as Devaney hairs.

Biography

Early life and education

Devaney was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, on April 9, 1948. He was raised in nearby Methuen, and attended Central Catholic High School.

After high school, Devaney graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics with highest honors in 1969. As an undergraduate at Holy Cross, he was named the Fenwick Scholar, the college's highest academic honor. His senior undergraduate thesis, "Lens Spaces as Coset Spaces", was published in the fifth volume of the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal. He then earned his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1973 from the University of California, Berkeley, under Fields medalist Stephen Smale. His doctoral dissertation was titled, "Reversible diffeomorphisms and flows".

Academic career

After completing his doctorate, Devaney was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University from 1974 to 1976 and an assistant professor of mathematics at Tufts University from 1976 to 1980. During the spring semester of 1980, he was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and that year he joined Boston University as an associate professor of mathematics. He served as chair of Boston University's Department of Mathematics from 1983 to 1986 and became a full professor there in 1986. During his career at Boston University, he also held visiting appointments at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in 1984 and 1989, Paris-Sud University and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in 1988, the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica in 2001, and the University of Barcelona in 2008.

Beginning in 1989, Devaney directed the National Science Foundation-sponsored Dynamical Systems and Technology Project at Boston University. The project was designed to help secondary-school and college mathematics teachers introduce contemporary subjects including chaos, fractals, and dynamical systems into their classrooms and to use technology in teaching those subjects. He also co-directed the Boston University Ordinary Differential Equations Project with mathematicians Paul Blanchard and Glen R. Hall; originally funded by two NSF grants, the project sought to incorporate modern dynamical-systems theory into the traditional sophomore-level course in ordinary differential equations and produced a textbook based on that approach. Outside academia, he served as a "chaos consultant" for theatrical productions of Arcadia and as a mathematical consultant for the 2007 production of the film 21.

In 2010, Boston University named Devaney its inaugural Feld Family Professor of Teaching Excellence. He then served as president of the Mathematical Association of America from 2013 to 2015. He retired from Boston University in 2018, becoming a professor emeritus of mathematics there.

Devaney died on November 16, 2025, at the age of 77.

Mathematical research

Devaney is known for formulating a simple and widely used definition of chaotic systems, one that does not need advanced concepts such as measure theory. In his 1989 book An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems, Devaney defined a system to be chaotic if it has sensitive dependence on initial conditions, it is topologically transitive (for any two open sets, some points from one set will eventually hit the other set), and its periodic orbits form a dense set. Later, it was observed that this definition is redundant: sensitive dependence on initial conditions follows automatically as a mathematical consequence of the other two properties.

Devaney hairs, a fractal structure in certain Julia sets, are named after Devaney, who was the first to investigate them.

Awards and honors

In 1995, Devaney won the Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished University Teaching of the Mathematical Association of America. In 2002, Devaney won the National Science Foundation Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars.

In 2008, a conference in honor of Devaney's 60th birthday was held in Tossa de Mar, Spain. The papers from the conference were published in a special issue of the Journal of Difference Equations and Applications in 2010, also honoring Devaney.

In 2012, he became one of the inaugurals fellows of the American Mathematical Society.

Selected publications

Books

Devaney is the author of books on fractals and dynamical systems including:

Research papers

Some of the more highly cited of Devaney's research publications include:

References

  1. ↑ Keen, Linda (2010), "Introduction to the Robert Devaney special issue", Journal of Difference Equations and Applications, 16 (5–6): 407–409, doi:10.1080/10236190903260838, retrieved September 12, 2026
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Robert Devaney Curriculum Vitae" (PDF), Mathematics Department, Boston University, retrieved December 2, 2023
  3. 1 2 3 "Remembering Mathematician Bob Devaney", Arts & Sciences, Boston University, February 18, 2026, retrieved September 12, 2026
  4. ↑ Robert L. Devaney, About MAA: Governance, Mathematical Association of America, retrieved September 28, 2015.
  5. ↑ College of the Holy Cross (1969), Purple Patcher, Worcester, Massachusetts: College of the Holy Cross, senior class entry for Robert Luke Devaney, retrieved September 12, 2026 – via Internet Archive
  6. ↑ Robert L. Devaney's Publications, Boston University Department of Mathematics, retrieved September 12, 2026
  7. ↑ Robert L. Devaney at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. ↑ Devaney, Robert Luke (June 1973), Reversible diffeomorphisms and flows (PhD thesis), University of California, Berkeley, OCLC 21927116
  9. ↑ "2003 Metcalf Award Winners", Office of the Provost, Boston University, retrieved September 12, 2026
  10. ↑ Dynamical Systems and Technology Project, Boston University Department of Mathematics, retrieved September 12, 2026
  11. ↑ The Boston University Ordinary Differential Equations Project, Boston University Department of Mathematics, retrieved September 12, 2026
  12. ↑ Barlow, Rich (February 18, 2010), "CAS Names First Feld Family Professor", BU Today, Boston University, retrieved September 12, 2026
  13. ↑ Robert L. "Bob" Devaney (1948–2025): Remembering a Life of Dedicated Service to the MAA, Mathematical Association of America, January 27, 2026, retrieved September 12, 2026
  14. ↑ Robert L. "Bob" Devaney
  15. ↑ Banks, John; Dragan, Valentina; Jones, Arthur (2003), Chaos: A Mathematical Introduction, Australian Mathematical Society Lecture Series, vol. 18, Cambridge University Press, p. viii, Bibcode:2003cmi..book.....B, ISBN 9780521531047, Although there are several competing definitions of chaos, we concentrate here on the one given by Robert Devaney, which avoids the use of measure theory and uses only elementary notions from analysis.
  16. ↑ Boccara, Nino (2010), Modeling Complex Systems, Graduate Texts in Physics (2nd ed.), Springer-Verlag, p. 180, ISBN 9781441965622.
  17. ↑ Banks, J.; Brooks, J.; Cairns, G.; Davis, G.; Stacey, P. (1992), "On Devaney's definition of chaos", The American Mathematical Monthly, 99 (4): 332–334, doi:10.2307/2324899, JSTOR 2324899, MR 1157223.
  18. 1 2 Keen, Linda (2010), "Introduction to the Robert Devaney special issue", Journal of Difference Equations and Applications, 16 (5–6): 407–409, doi:10.1080/10236190903260838, S2CID 121692691.
  19. ↑ Rempe, Lasse; Rippon, Philip J.; Stallard, Gwyneth M. (2010), "Are Devaney hairs fast escaping?", Journal of Difference Equations and Applications, 16 (5–6): 739–762, arXiv:0904.1403, doi:10.1080/10236190903282824, MR 2675603, S2CID 14414411.
  20. ↑ Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award – List of Recipients, Mathematical Association of America, retrieved September 28, 2015.
  21. ↑ Barlow, Rich (February 18, 2000), "CAS Names First Feld Family Professor: Robert Devaney makes fractals crackle, starting in high school", BU Today, Boston University.
  22. ↑ BU professor wins NSF teaching award, Boston University, February 2007, retrieved September 28, 2015.
  23. ↑ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society, American Mathematical Society, retrieved September 28, 2015
  24. ↑ Review of An introduction to chaotic dynamical systems by Richard C. Churchill (1987), MR 0811850.
  25. ↑ Review of An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems by Philip Holmes (1987), SIAM Review 29 (4): 654–658, JSTOR 2031218.
  26. ↑ Eckmann, Jean-Pierre (1987), "Review of An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems by Robert L. Devaney" (PDF), Physics Today, 40 (7): 72, doi:10.1063/1.2820117, ISSN 0031-9228
  27. ↑ Review of The Science of Fractal Images by P. D. F. Ion (1992), MR 0952853.
  28. ↑ Review of Chaos, Fractals, and Dynamics by Thomas Scavo (1991), The College Mathematics Journal 22 (1): 82–84, doi:10.2307/2686745.
  29. ↑ Review of A First Course in Chaotic Dynamical Systems by Frederick R. Marotto (1994), MR 1202237.
  30. ↑ Review of Differential Equations, Dynamical Systems, and an Introduction to Chaos by Michael Hurley (2005), MR 2144536.