Logic List Mailing Archive

Michael Morley (1930-2020)

Michael Morley, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, dies at 90

https://math.cornell.edu/michael-morley-professor-emeritus-mathematics-dies-90

Our friend and colleague Professor Emeritus Michael Morley passed 
yesterday evening at the Packer Hospital in Sayre, PA. Michael turned 90 
on September 29th. He is survived by his niece Heide Lee of Houston.

Michael Darwin Morley earned his Bachelor's degree from the Case Institute 
of Technology in 1951. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the 
University of Chicago in 1953 and 1962 respectively. His Ph.D. was under 
the initial direction of Saunders Mac Lane and completed with Robert 
Vaught at Berkeley.

From 1955-61 he worked as a mathematician for the Lab of Applied Sciences 
at the University of Chicago.  He was an Instructor at the University of 
California at Berkeley from 1962-63 and Assistant Professor at the 
University of Wisconsin from 1963-67. He joined Cornell as an Associate 
Professor in 1967 and was promoted to Professor in 1970. Michael served as 
Associate Chair and Director of Undergraduate Studies from 1984-1990 and 
1991-95. He was also President of the Association of Symbolic Logic from 
1986-89. He became Professor Emeritus on January 1, 2003.

In 2003 Michael won the Leroy P. Steele Prize of the American Mathematical 
Society for Seminal Contribution to Research for his 1965 paper 
"Categoricity in Power". The award citation notes the paper "set in motion 
an extensive development of pure model theory by proving the first deep 
theorem in this subject and introducing in the process completely new 
tools to analyze theories and their models". He introduced the notion now 
known as Morley rank. Over 400 papers use this term.

Michael's devotion to students is very well-known at Cornell and in the 
larger community --- the Morley Prize, awarded to an outstanding 
mathematics senior at Ithaca High School, is named in his honor. He was 
also a patient and empathetic advisor to undergraduates and received the 
1995-96 Robert A. and Donna B. Paul Advising award from the College of 
Arts & Sciences. The award is "to honor undergraduate advisers who make a 
difference in the lives of their Cornell students". Some staff members 
referred to him as "Uncle Mike" because of his kind and genial manner. One 
commented on the "many stressed and emotional undergrads who sought 
counsel and left his office calm and smiling".

His motto was "At Cornell, we like students".
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