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The Sarah Lawrence community mourns the loss of Faculty Emeritus Joseph Woolfson (Mathematics), who passed away on February 22.
Joe taught at Sarah Lawrence from 1965-2013, and arrived at the College while working on his PhD dissertation at New York University’s Courant Institute. At that time his area of expertise was Group Theory, but his interests stretched across a number of areas of mathematics, and even into physics. At Sarah Lawrence, he taught hundreds of students, both undergraduates and continuing education, and was part of the expansion of the natural sciences and mathematics that took place through the 1990s and 2000s.
Joe had many and varied talents; beyond mathematics, he was a wine connoisseur, skilled violinist, pastry chef, and inventor. He generously provided wine from his own collection for faculty dinners hosted at the president’s house. Joe was a regular performer at the annual Faculty Show, charming audiences with his song “Let’s Conjugate”, singling out individual faculty members and set to the tune of Cole Porter’s “Let’s Fall in Love”. At the Annual Scholarship Auction in 1989, his raspberry linzer torte went for an impressive $60 (front row Bon Jovi tickets only fetched $75).
In 1983, Joe was awarded US Patent No: 4,380,162 for the invention of a highly pick-resistant magnetic lock. The lock used variable magnetic field strength as part of the operating mechanism, making it difficult to decode and duplicate. Twenty years later, in 2003, he received US Patent No: 6,644,061 for a sound muffling device designed for air conditioning units.
Joe was a fixture at Sarah Lawrence – in the classroom, the dining hall, at faculty meetings – for nearly 50 years. His long-time colleague in Mathematics, Dan King, put it simply: “Professor Woolfson was a great lover of all mathematics, pure and applied. He was drawn to the subject’s rich theoretical underpinnings and energized by its playful nature and far-reaching applicability. Through his deep passion for all things mathematical, Joe inspired generations of Sarah Lawrence students.” And, with his incredible range of talents and interests, Joe inspired his colleagues as well.