Robert Coleman, professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, died March 24, 2014, of a heart attack after battling multiple sclerosis for 29 years. He was 59.
Coleman graduated from Harvard in 1976, with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. He earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton in 1979, and began teaching at Berkeley in 1983. He received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1987. Coleman’s research dealt mostly with number theory, p-adic analysis, and arithmetic geometry.
Kenneth Ribet, also a Berkeley math professor and a friend, described Coleman’s approach as rethinking subjects from the ground up, taking them apart, and putting them back together so that they led to new insights. He published 63 papers and had great influence in his fields.
Coleman took his disability in stride. With his racing wheelchair and his own optimism propelling him forward, he pressured local governments to install disability accommodations. Passionate about his teaching, he refused the easier way of teaching online since he liked seeing his students and working one-on-one with them.
Coleman is survived by Tessa Drake-Coleman, his devoted wife whom he married in 2012; a brother; and a sister.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.