Department Of Mathematics, Kansas State University
| August 2006 : | In Memoriam - Brent Smith |
| Brent Smith, Professor of Mathematics, died near the village of
Iliamna, Alaska, securing his fishing boat in a storm; his body was
discovered August 22, 2006.
Brent was born on September 11, 1949, in Falfurrias, Texas, some sixty miles from the Mexican border. Brent attended high school in Williston, North Dakota and received his B.S. from Reed College in 1971. After receiving his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1977 he took a postdoctoral position at Kansas State University in 1977-78. Brent subsequently held positions at the University of Kentucky, Illinois State University, Cal Tech and Bellcore before rejoining the faculty at KSU in 1989 as a full professor. He was awarded a Sloan fellowship from 1982-1984, for his contribution to the resolution of the Littlewood Conjecture. In addition to his work on exponential sums, Brent also made significant contributions to the study of the quantitative behavior of Fourier-Stieltjes transforms. He authored over twenty publications in analysis and had three Ph.D. students at KSU; over the last several years he worked on a variety of problems in analytic number theory. In much of his research he demonstrated a flair for ingenious combinatorial arguments. During the summer months, Brent fished commercially for salmon in Alaska. A descendant, on his mother's side, of New England fishermen, and the son of an oil geologist, he was well acquainted with risk and chance. Brent is survived by his son Garth Smith, of Ventura, California; his parents Donna May and William Oliver Smith of Sun City, Arizona; his brother Billy; and his sister Brenda Lam, of Raleigh, North Carolina. Memorial contributions may be made to Friends of Mathematics, and sent to the Department of Mathematics, Kansas State University, 138 Cardwell Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506. A memorial service was held on October 21, 2006, in the Danforth Chapel in Manhattan. |