1903-1977

Hodge was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1903. While attending the university at Edinburgh, he was advised by his teacher, Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, to continue his studies at Cambridge in England (Sir Edmund's alma mater). Hodge held a chair at Cambridge, where his work concentrated on the relationship between geometry, analysis, and topology. He was one of the founders of the Mathematical Colloquium, a yearly event in which mathematicians visit various universities in Great Britain. "[I]n recognition of his pioneering work in algebraic geometry, notably in his theory of harmonic integrals," the Royal Society of London awarded Hodge its Copley Medal in 1974, three years before his death, in Cambridge, in 1977.