Yousef Alavi

Yousef Alavi (March 19, 1928 – May 21, 2013)[1] was an Iranian born American mathematician who specialized in combinatorics and graph theory. He received his PhD from Michigan State University in 1958.[2] He was a professor of mathematics at Western Michigan University from 1958 until his retirement in 1996;[3] he chaired the department from 1989 to 1992.[4]

Alavi was known for complaining that "this is highly irregular!" He was also a frequent host for Paul Erdős on his visits to Western Michigan. On one of these visits, these two things came together: he made his usual complaint at a time when Erdős and Ronald Graham were present. This sparked a discussion on what it might mean for a graph to be highly irregular, kicking off a line of joint research on highly irregular graphs through which Alavi obtained Erdős number one.[5]

In 1987 he received the first Distinguished Service Award of the Michigan Section of the Mathematical Association of America due to his 30 years of service to the MAA; at that time, the Michigan House and Senate issued a special resolution honoring him.[6]

References

1. "Yousef Alavi", Kalamazoo Gazette, May 23, 2013.
2. Yousef Alavi at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
3. Emeritus faculty Archived 2009-07-02 at the Wayback Machine, Western Michigan University mathematics department.
4. History of the department, Western Michigan University mathematics department.
5. Schechter, Bruce (2000), My Brain is Open: The Mathematical Journeys of Paul Erdős, Simon and Schuster, p. 197, ISBN 9780684859804
6. Michigan Section's Award Recipients.