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College
and community remember renowned mathematics professor
Kenneth Cooke; A memorial fund will support summer
research.
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An overflow crowd from campus and the wider community turned
out on Saturday, Sept. 8 to remember internationally
renowned mathematician Kenneth L. Cooke in a service held at
the Claremont United Church of Christ, Congregational.
Cooke died of a brain tumor in Pomona, Calif. on Aug. 25,
2007. He was 82.
 Born
Aug. 13, 1925 in Kansas City, Mo., Cooke attended Pomona
College despite his parents’ urging that he consider Harvard
University. His studies were interrupted by U.S. Navy
service during World War II, but he returned and graduated
with a B.A. in mathematics in 1947. At Pomona, he met his future wife,
Margaret Burgess, a government major in the Class of 1948,
and they were married in 1950.
He went on to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. from Stanford
University. He taught mathematics at Washington State
University in Pullman, Wash., for seven years before joining
the Pomona faculty in 1957. Within five years, he had become
chair of the department, a position he held for a decade,
and been promoted to full professor.
In his research, Professor Cooke was considered among the
top practitioners in the world in two discrete fields of
mathematics—delay differential equations and mathematical
modeling. In the last 20 years of his career, he
carved out a special niche in the area of mathematical
modeling of such infectious diseases as AIDS. In 1990, an
elite group of 100 mathematicians from 22 countries paid
Cooke a singular honor when they assembled in Claremont to
honor him prior to his 65th birthday with an international
symposium on “Differential Equations and Applications to
Biology Population Dynamics.”
A memorial fund in Cooke's honor will support summer research
projects of students in the Department of Mathematics at
Pomona College. The Cooke family has asked
that donations in memory of Ken Cooke be sent to Pomona
College for the Kenneth L. Cooke Memorial Fund, in care of
Don Pattison, Director of Donor Relations, 550 North College
Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711.
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