Brief Bio of Dr. Walters

Before coming to UNBC, Dr. Walters was Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Western Ontario (1990-94), a post-doctoral fellow at UBC (1988-90), and a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan (1985-1988). He obtained his Ph.D. ('88) and M.A. ('81) in Pure Mathematics from Dalhousie University. (He graduated from a private U.S. high school and has no undergraduate degree.)

His area of research is, broadly, Functional Analysis, primarily Operator Algebras -- esp. C*-algebras, K-theory, and Noncommutative Geometry. (The field of Operator Algebras is a mathematical offshoot of Quantum Theory in physics, and has become an independent field of investigation -- though still connected.) In September 1996, he organized the Fifth West Coast Operator Algebra Seminar at UNBC, which was attended by top people in the field (over 30 particpants), mainly from Berkeley and UCLA, that included several (financially supported) PhD students working on the frontiers of the subject. Dr. Walters' name appeared in a select list of ``popular profs" at UNBC in the 1997 and 2005 issues of the Maclean's Guide to Canadian Universities. (He is also interested in the growing connections with theoretical physics -- particularly string theory -- but he does not research in this field.)

(PS--The following page contains recent papers linking Operator Algebras to String Theory.)

Education. Ph.D. 1988, M.A. 1981, in Mathematics from Dalhousie University. (I do not have a Bachelor's degree.)

Numbers.  My Erdos number is 3 (and Einstein number 5); my mathematical great-grandfather is Alfred Tarski.