After Dinner Biographical Notes

Abstract

Bill Helton was born in November 1944 in Jacksonville, Texas. His father was an oral surgeon initially in the US Army and later in private practice. His mother was a drama major at Northwestern University and worked in her husband’s oral surgery practice. Bill finished high school at Alamo Heights, TX, at the age of 16. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin at the age of 19 and completed his PhD at Stanford in 1968 at the age of 23. After receiving his PhD, Bill was on the faculty at SUNY Stony Brook until 1973. He moved to UCSD in 1974. He has held the title of Distinguished Professor of Mathematics since the mid-1990s. Throughout his career Bill has made a remarkable number of breakthroughs which led to new fields. I will review them briefly.