Mathematics Professor Retires After 26 Years at the University

Thomas Jech, professor emeritus of mathematics, has retired from the Eberly College of Science after 26 years at Penn State.

A highly regarded mathematician world-renown for his work with set theory, Jech has been included in "Who's Who in the World" and "Who's Who in America, Science and Engineering."

He has published seven books and has authored or coauthored nearly 100 articles published in scientific journals. He has presented more than 170 invited colloquium talks and lectures in 20 countries. He has served as managing editor of the Annals of Pure and Applied Logic since 1986. His other academic interests include algebra, analysis, automated theorem proving, mathematical logic, measure theory, and topology.

In 1981, although not a college football fan himself but intrigued by the interest of his then-13-year-old son in the polls that rank teams, Jech devised a mathematics-based ranking system and published a paper about his research. His report, "The Ranking of Incomplete Tournaments: A Mathematician's Guide to Popular Sports," focused on sports and provided a mathematical base for comparisons in other fields.

Several newspapers across the country, including The New York Times, wrote about Jech's research and some other newspapers used his ranking system for a brief period. Interestingly, his efforts regarding college football were similar to the existing Bowl Championship Series formula the sport has only recently adopted to determine contenders for the national championship and participants in major bowl games.

Prior to joining Penn State for the 1974 fall semester, Jech was a visiting professor at Stanford University. He was a member of the Institute for Advanced Study in 1973, a visiting associate professor at Princeton University in 1972, a visiting associate professor at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1970 to 1971 and an associate professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo from 1970 to 1974. He has been honored twice as a Fulbright Scholar, traveling to Israel in 1989 and France in 1996. He also served as a visiting fellow at All Souls College in Oxford, England, in 1988, the University of Paris in 1990, and California Institute of Technology in 1991.

Born in Czechoslovakia in 1944, he earned his doctoral degree at Charles University in Prague in 1966. He worked for two years as a research associate at the university.

In 1968, he and his family escaped from Czechoslovakia after the Russian invasion of that country. He worked one year as a junior fellow at the University of Bristol, England, before arriving in the United States and accepting a position at SUNY-Buffalo as visiting associate professor in 1969.

A U.S. citizen since 1976, Jech and his wife, Paula, have two grown children, Pavel and Susanna.

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