J. Ernest Wilkins Jr., who received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Chicago as a 19-year-old in 1942, will be honored by the University at a special event beginning at 2 p.m. Friday, March 2, in room 209 of Eckhart Hall, 1118 E. 58th Street.

University of Chicago News Office
February 27, 2007

Among his many achievements, Wilkins in 1976 became the second African American to be elected to the National Academy of Engineering, one of the highest honors an engineer can receive.

“The University of Chicago Mathematics Department has extremely high standards. It’s been an outstanding department for quite some time,” said Robert Fefferman, Dean of the Physical Sciences Division and the Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics at the University of Chicago. “It’s extraordinary for someone 19 years old to get a Ph.D. from a department of that quality in a very rigorous subject.”

The University will commemorate Wilkins’s achievements by hanging his portrait and a plaque in his honor in the Eckhart Hall Tea Room, one of the most elegant spaces in the Physical Sciences Division.

The following speakers will present brief remarks at the event:

• Robert Fefferman, Dean of the Physical Sciences Division, University of Chicago;
• Kenneth Warren, Deputy Provost for Minority Affairs and Research and the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor in English Language & Literature, University of Chicago;
• Walter Massey, President of Morehouse College in Atlanta and a Trustee of the University of Chicago;
• Johnny Houston, Executive Secretary Emeritus of the National Association of Mathematicians and Senior Research Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina.

“I believe this event will not only honor Dr. Wilkins, but it will be a great opportunity for the University,” Fefferman said. “He is such a fabulous role model that his example should encourage brilliant African American mathematics and science faculty members and students to choose Chicago as their academic home.”

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