Dr. Richard Askey

Mathematics Mentor

Richard Askey has a B.A. from Washington University and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in mathematics. When he started to work on special functions, he was told by many people that the subject was dead. That was not true, and it is now very healthy. In the course of some of his work, he needed results found by the great Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan. This lead in indirect ways to the commissioning of a bust of Ramanujan, one casting of which was given to Ramanujan's widow. Dr. Askey is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and also an honorary fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences. After teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for forty years, he currently spends much of his time on school mathematics.