David Kent Harrison | |
|---|---|
| Born | 6 April1931 Massachusetts |
| Died | 21 December1999 Barnstable, Massachusetts |
| Alma mater | Princeton University |
| Occupation | mathematician |
| Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship |
David Kent Harrison (6 April 1931, Massachusetts – 21 December 1999, Barnstable, Massachusetts) was an American mathematician, specializing in algebra, particularly homological algebra and valuation theory.
He completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1957; his dissertation, titled On torsion free abelian groups, was written under the supervision of Emil Artin.[1]
Harrison was a faculty member from 1959 to 1963 at the University of Pennsylvania[2] and from 1963 to 1993 at the University of Oregon, retiring there as professor emeritus in 1993.[3]
He developed a commutative cohomology theory for commutative algebras.[4] Along with his colleague Marie A. Vitulli, he developed a unified valuation theory for rings with zero divisors that generalized both Krull and Archimedean valuations.[5]
He was a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 1963–1964.[6] He supervised 28 doctoral students including Joel Cunningham.[1] Ann Hill Harrison endowed the Harrison Memory Award for outstanding mathematical students at the University of Oregon.[3] He is survived by his son, composer and pianist Michael Harrison, a Guggenheim Fellow for the academic year 2018–2019,[7] and his daughter Jo Ellen Harrison.