I am so sad to hear of Georgia’s passing. I came to Madison in 1977 undecided about what to specialize in, but I quickly gravitated to algebra after inspiring courses from Marty Isaacs, Don Passman, and especially Georgia, whose Lie Algebras course I took around 1979 or 1980. I was honored when she agreed to be my advisor; she was a brilliant, kind, patient, and supportive mentor.
My memories from so long ago are fading, but a few snapshots have stayed with me. The day she came to class and wrote on the board “I have laryngitis,” and then proceeded to give yet another beautiful (and silent) lecture. Dinner at her and Paula’s home, and the stories she told that night, including one about Hans Zassenhaus and an artichoke. Her office, full of stapled construction-paper polyhedra made by her math education students and piled with pastel handouts-become-scrap-paper, before recycling was a thing. And her comments on my thesis draft: that I could write “zeros” or “zeroes,” and I could pick one or the other but not both; and that I shouldn’t begin a sentence with “So,” because Marshall (Osborn) didn’t like it.
Georgia always had a sparkle in her eye, and she had an infectious sense of wonder about everything, mathematical and otherwise. I last saw Georgia after her brilliant Noether lecture at the Joint Meetings in 2014. I hadn’t seen her for perhaps 20 years, but she greeted me warmly and familiarly, with that classic sparkle of the eye.
Today was my last Abstract Algebra lecture of the semester, and instead of reviewing for the final exam, I told my students about Georgia and introduced them to Lie Algebras. Preparing my notes reminded me of what a beautiful subject it was, and I hope my students appreciated the mathematics and the memories. It is hard to believe Georgia is gone.
