Whyburn, William M. (William Marvin), 1901-1972

William Marvin Whyburn (1901-1972) was born in Denton County, Texas, on November 12, 1901. He received his undergraduate education at North Texas State College and the University of Texas at Austin. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin under the direction of Hyman Joseph Ettlinger, largely while teaching at Texas Technological College. Whyburn was a National Research Fellow at Harvard University (1927-1928) before joining the faculty of the University of California-Los Angeles, where he became Mathematics Department chairman (1937-1944). In 1944 Whyburn returned to Texas Technological College as President, a position which he retained until 1948 and his appointment as Kenan Professor of Mathematics and Mathematics Department chairman at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Whyburn also served as Acting Provost (1956-1957) and Vice President for Research (1957-1960). After his retirement from the University of North Carolina in 1967, Whyburn was Frensley Professor of Mathematics at Southern Methodist University until 1970, when he returned to Chapel Hill and teaching part time at Eastern Carolina University. He died in 1972. Whyburn was a Council member (1940-1942), Associate Secretary (1950-1953), and served on numerous committees of the American Mathematical Society. He was first Vice-President of the Mathematical Association of America for 1943-1945. Whyburn's research dealt mainly with the theory of ordinary differential equations, particularly second order differential systems. He did extensive consulting work for the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Whyburn wrote several college textbooks with P. H. Daus.