Marty Isaacs was born and brought up in the Bronx, New York. He attended the Bronx High School of Science and then the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. In his senior year at Poly, he was on the school’s winning Putnam team and he placed in the top tier of individual winners. He was a graduate student at Harvard University where he studied with Professor Richard Brauer. His thesis concerned linear groups and a problem of Blichfeld. He received his PhD in 1964. Marty’s first academic position was as an instructor at the University of Chicago. He came to Madison in 1969 as an Associate Professor with tenure and was awarded a Sloan Fellowship in 1971. That same year, he was promoted to Full Professor, at the age of 31. He has been here ever since.
Marty’s main research interest was in finite group theory, although he had worked in many other aspects of algebra. He was perhaps the world’s leading expert on the character theory of finite groups. Among other things, he was known for the Glauberman-Isaacs character correspondence, his solution of the famous groups of central-type conjecture, and his more recent work refining and better understanding the McKay conjecture. In June 2009, a conference on character theory was held in his honor in Valencia, Spain. In addition, Marty had always been passionate about teaching and exposition. He was quite possibly the best teacher in our department, and he had numerous teaching awards to prove this. Over the years, he had mentored 29 PhD students, with several more in the works. Marty had written books on character theory, finite group theory, first year graduate algebra, and even one on geometry for college students. From 1980-2012, he had been in charge of the Mathematics Talent Search which offers challenging math problems to middle and high school students throughout the state and the world. It remains the Department’s leading and most well-known outreach program.
–Written by Don Passman
Marty’s legacy will continue with the AMS I. Martin Isaacs Excellence in Mathematical Writing prize, first awarded this year to Ben Green, Waynflete Professor of Pure Mathematics, University of Oxford.