Lajos Pukanszky: 1928-1996
Dr. Lajos Pukanszky, an emeritus professor of Mathematics, died on
February 15 at the age of 67. He was considered by many to be the
world's leading expert on representations of Solvable Lie Groups. Dr.
Pukanszky came to the University from UCLA in 1964, as a full
professor. He joined the functional analysis group, just forming in the
Mathematics Department. That group became, almost at once, the foremost
assemblage of functional analysts in the world; Lajos Pukanszky was one
of its stars.
Dr. Pukanszky was born in Budapest, Hungary on Nov. 24, 1928. He was educated at the Universities of Debrecen, Budapest and Szeged, receiving his Ph.D. in 1955 at the University of Szeged.
He fled Hungary during the 1956 uprising, arriving at a Yugoslavian refugee camp. His talents were well recognized on this side of the Atlantic. He received a visa and came to the USA in 1957. His career, here, began with an appointment as a Research Associate at an institute in Baltimore. From there, he moved to a position in the Mathematics Department at the University of Maryland. Shortly after that, he accepted a visiting position at Stanford and then a line position at UCLA. He was promoted to tenure a year following that. At that same time, he was happy and proud to become a citizen of the United States.
Lajos Pukanszky will missed by his colleagues and friends.
For more information on his mathemical contributions, see Pukanszky Obituary in the Notices of American Math. Society.