S. Barry Cooper, British mathematician, Died at 72

  Dead Famous

S. Barry Cooper was born on October 9, 1943, and died on October 26, 2015.

He was a British mathematician and computability theorist.

Barry was a Professor of Pure Mathematics at the University of Leeds.

Barry graduated from Jesus College, Oxford in 1966, and in 1970 received his PhD from University of Leicester under the supervision of Reuben Goodstein and C.E.M. Yates, with a thesis entitled Degrees of Unsolvability.

He was appointed Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds in 1969, where he remained for the rest of his career.

Barry was promoted to Reader in Mathematical Logic in 1991 and to Professor of Pure Mathematics in 1996.

His book Computability Theory made the technical research area accessible to a new generation of students.

Barry was a leading mover of the return to basic questions of the kind considered by Alan Turing, and of interdisciplinary developments related to computability.

He was President of the Association Computability in Europe, and Chair of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee (TCAC) which co-ordinated the Alan Turing Year.

Barry passed away at age 72 on October 26, 2015.