Biography

Jacques Lewin's parents had emigrated from Poland to Belgium in the 1920s, and in late 1939 had moved to France, where they stayed in a refugee camp. Jacques was born June 18, 1940 in that camp. Germany had invaded Belgium on May 10, 1940, and France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940. He and his mother returned to Belgium for 1940 to 1942, then returned to France and ended in Grenoble. Jacques came to the U.S. in 1953, he earned his BS at MIT in 1960 and his Ph.D. at NYU in 1964 with a dissertation under Gilbert Baumslag; Tekla and Jacques were Baumslag's first and second Ph.D. students, respectively.

He joined the mathematics faculty at SU in 1965, was promoted to Professor in 1975 and has visited at Cal Tech, UC at Santa Barbara, Bedford College London and Virginia Polytechnic Institute. He has published 29 papers in group theory and ring theory, and he has directed 7 Ph.D. students: Arthur Miller (1970), Robert Tyler (1972), Hernando Bedoya (1974), Carl Droms (1983), Herman Servatius (1986), Vali Gorjizadeh (1986) and Murali Ranganathan (1989).

Jacques has served many times on the Department's three main committees: Executive Committee (1970-1971, 1989-1990, 1991-1993), Graduate Committee often in his early years at Syracuse and especially the Undergraduate Committee in the later years. For the last 15 years or so he has taught three courses in the fall (including two sections of one course, e.g. MAT 133 or 183) and one in the spring.

Jacques and Tekla Lewin were married in 1965 before coming to Syracuse and were divorced in 1980 or 1981. Their son Max is a counselor at a halfway house in California. Jacques retired in May 2003.

Source: Jacques' cv. and my interview of him on 9/25/02. Phil Church 6/4/03