Victor L. Shapiro
Distinguished Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus
Victor L. Shapiro, a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at UC Riverside (UCR), died on March 1, 2013, in Riverside at the age of 88.
Professor Shapiro was born in October 1924, in Chicago, IL, to Joseph E. Shapiro and Anna Grossman Shapiro. He served our country in the Second World War and was awarded the Combat Infantry Badge in September, 1944 for action on the South Pacific island of Bougainville. In April 1945, serving as a combat medic with the 132nd infantry regiment, Professor Shapiro was in the 6th wave of a beachhead landing on Cebu and saw much action in the ensuing campaign.
Professor Shapiro received his B.Sc. in 1947, his M.Sc. in 1949, and Ph.D. in 1952, all in mathematics and all from the University of Chicago. His thesis advisor was Antoni Zygmund, the creator of the Chicago school of mathematical analysis, who is considered one of the greatest specialists in mathematical analysis in the 20th century.
From 1952 until 1960, Professor Shapiro taught at Rutgers University. He then moved to the University of Oregon from 1960 to 1964. He also spent three years at the Institute for Advanced Study. Professor Shapiro joined UCR in 1964 and worked at UCR for 46 years, until his retirement in 2010.
An expert on trigonometric series and differential equations, Professor Shapiro was internationally recognized for having solved a number of difficult problems in analysis. He is known for his two theorems (published in 1957) on the uniqueness of multiple Fourier series.
Over the course of his long and distinguished academic career, Professor Shapiro published more than 100 papers. In 2003, he was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2012, he was named a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society for outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication, and utilization of mathematics. His book Fourier Series in Several Variables with Applications to Partial Differential Equations was published in 2011 when Professor Shapiro was 86. His teaching at UCR centered on Fourier analysis and advanced calculus.
In November 1995, a conference was held in his honor at UCR; the Department of Mathematics holds a periodic Distinguished Lecture in Mathematics series dedicated in his memory.
At the time of his death, Professor Shapiro was survived by his wife, Florence, to whom he was happily married for nearly 65 years and with whom he regularly attended dances. He was also survived by four children; thirteen grandchildren; and a brother and sister.
