1907-1989

American mathematician who is best known for his contributions to topology, graph theory, and chromatic polynomials. Whitney received his first degree in mathematics at Yale, then went on to earn a doctorate at Harvard in 1932 with a dissertation entitled "The Coloring of Graphs." He taught at Harvard until 1952, when he accepted an appointment at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, where he remained until his retirement in 1977. Whitney was awarded the National Medal of Science (1976), the Wolf Prize (1983), and the Steele Prize (1985).