William S. Massey *49

William Massey, professor emeritus of mathematics at Yale, died June 17, 2017, at the age of 96.

Massey graduated from the University of Chicago with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 1941 and 1942. During World War II, he served as a meteorologist aboard aircraft carriers. In 1949, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton. For the next 10 years, he taught at Brown University, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 1958.

In 1960, Massey joined Yale and was named the Erasmus L. DeForest professor of mathematics. During summers on Long Island Sound, he wrote textbooks on algebraic topology that are still in print. He traveled to Africa and Central America for bird watching, and had a long life list of birds he had seen.

He read widely in literature, with Joseph Conrad, Anton Chekhov, and Alice Munro as his favorite authors. He was a humble man, whose children only learned from outside the family that their father had done original work in mathematics. An egalitarian, Massey was proud that Yale accepted students without considering how much financial aid they needed.

Massey was predeceased by Ethel, his wife of 60 years. He is survived by three children and five grandchildren.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.