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Dr. John Dauns, born Riga, Latvia June 11, 1937 (as Janis Drinks) died in New Orleans June 4, 2009.

He is survived by his brother Peter (Jamaica Plain, MA), his step-brother Helmuts A. Feifs (Durham, NC), and his friend Virginia Slind-Flor (Oakland, CA).

He will be missed by his many colleagues in the Tulane Mathematics Department and worldwide.

John was an MIT undergraduate, receiving a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for graduate study at Harvard University, from which was awarded a PhD in 1964. John then accepted a faculty position at Tulane where he has been a valued mathematics professor for 45 years.

In 1972-3 John held a Humboldt Research Fellowship in Tubingen, Germany, and later held visiting positions at two South African universities (Natal and Stellenbosch), He authored 67 research papers (all but one in the field of algebra, but he had a lifelong interest in mathematical physics) and 4 books. John supervised 4 PhD dissertations and has 7 mathematical descendants. He was a nationally known algebraist, reporting on his
research on several conferences in his field of interest and was invited to several universities for colloquium talks.

John was devoted to mathematics and could be found in his office in Gibson Hall almost every day of the week. Yet he did make time for other activities, sky-diving for one, swimming for another. John had a pilot’s license. Mathematicians do have a reputation for eccentricity, but John was an extreme point. This made him all the more loveable.

In 1941 when German forces arrived, the family of four fled Latvia. John’s father, Serge, owned a fireworks factory (and produced official state fireworks displays). He feared that his knowledge of explosives might make him of interest to the Germans. They began a long trek, marked by hardship and sickness. John recalled that at one point he had serious problems with his ears. His parents persuaded a German doctor to perform major surgery on John; all they could pay the doctor was a pack of cigarettes. Eventually they made their way to the American zone in Germany, and finally to the US in 1950 (but by then the parents had divorced).

John’s father went to Chicago. (Nevertheless, John’s step-brother has said “John was … the absolute center of his father's adoration.”) John, his mother, and Peter settled in Omaha, Nebraska, where John attended middle school. They then moved to Boston, where John was enrolled in the English High School, graduating in 1956.

John enjoyed good health until early May 2009, when he was told he had liver cancer, and that it had already metastasized. He entered Covenant Home for Hospice care some 10 days later. Many math students and faculty members of the mathematics department visited him there, and attended (a few days before he died), a meeting at which Laszlo Fuchs spoke about John’s work in algebra. Afterward, all made their individual farewells.

A memorial service will be held at 3:00PM on September 17, 2009 at the Rogers Chapel on the Tulane/Newcomb campus.

John Dauns Oral History clips             

Oral History 1

Oral History 2

Oral History 3

Tribute To John from Lazlo Fuchs

Tribute

Pictures