David Kent Harrison

David Kent Harrison
Born6 April1931
Massachusetts
Died21 December1999
Barnstable, Massachusetts
Alma materPrinceton University
Occupationmathematician
AwardsGuggenheim 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.

  1. ^ a b David Kent Harrison at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  2. ^ "Faculty History". Department of Mathematics, University of Pennsylvania.
  3. ^ a b "Former Faculty". Department of Mathematics, University of Oregon.
  4. ^ Harrison, D. K. (1962). "Commutative Algebras and Cohomology". Transactions of the American Mathematical Society. 104 (2): 191–204. doi:10.1090/S0002-9947-1962-0142607-6. MR 0142607. Retrieved 3 April 2020.
  5. ^ Harrison, D. K.; Vitulli, Marie A. (1989). "V-Valuations of a Commutative Ring I". J. Algebra. 65 (3): 264–292. doi:10.1016/0021-8693(89)90305-0. MR 1024992.
  6. ^ "David Kent Harrison". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
  7. ^ "Michael Harrison". John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.