Gian-carlo Rota ’53

Gian, who came to the U.S. from South America in 1950 and who graduated summa cum laude with our class, died Apr. 19, 1999, of heart failure in Cambridge, Mass. He had been a renowned professor of mathematics and philosophy at M.I.T.

Born in Vigevano, Italy, Gian attended schools there and later the American School of Quito in Quito, Ecuador. At Princeton, his club was Prospect, he roomed with Jack Burchard, and he belonged to the Intl. Student Assn. He majored in mathematics and won the Andrew H. Brown Prize. He earned his MA and PhD in mathematics from Yale and became a math instructor at N.Y.U. and, later, at Harvard. In 1959 he went on the faculty at M.I.T. He advanced to associate professor in 1962 but left in 1965 to join the math staff at Rockefeller U. He found "the atmosphere of that ivory tower too rarefied" and returned to M.I.T. in 1967. It was at M.I.T. that he spent the rest of his illustrious academic career.

We mourn the loss of our brilliant classmate. His 1956 marriage to Teresa Rondon-Tarchatti ended in divorce; there were no children. Our condolences go to his sister, Ester Rota Gasperoni.

The Class of 1953