William Browder

William Browder died at home in early February at the age of 91, with his wife Anne Lisbeth Moeller at his side. He was mentally active and busy to the end and had recently celebrated his birthday with friends and family.
Bill was born in a Harlem hospital and grew up in Yonkers, New York, with his parents Earl and Raissa, and brothers Felix and Andrew. Raissa wished for her sons to avoid the tumult of politics that they grew up in, with Earl being the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the United States. She encouraged them to pursue careers in the sciences. Felix, a precocious polymath, tutored his younger brothers in advanced mathematics, leading to all three becoming mathematicians. Andy gave Bill the invaluable advice to learn an instrument, that the best way to survive high school was to be in the band or orchestra. Bill took up the flute, and music became a lifelong passion. He was an avid concertgoer and continued to play the flute until near the end of his life, always enthusiastically instigating chamber music get-togethers with fellow mathematicians and other musicians.
At Princeton University in 1958 Bill received his PhD in mathematics in the field of topology with John Coleman Moore as his thesis advisor. After a brief teaching post at the University of Rochester and five years at Cornell University, he returned to Princeton, where he became the youngest full professor in the history of the math department and continued to teach there for a half century, with stints as math department chair and director of graduate studies. Bill was active with the American Mathematical Society from the beginning of his career, including serving as Vice President (1977–1978) and President (1989–1991). He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1984, and to the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters in 1990, and from 1969 until 1980 he was editor of the Annals of Mathematics. Upon his retirement from Princeton, Bill continued to pursue his work in mathematics; he led and engaged in seminars, conferences and mathematical gatherings of all kinds and continued to work on mathematics right up to the end, including directing his Princeton seminar online in recent years. He loved attending tea in the math department common room and enjoyed poker, chess, board games, and card games of all sorts, as well as cooking, wine, and whiskey. He always had time to chat and joke with friends and family, and was very proud of his children and grandchildren. A singular joy to him in his last year was the birth of his fifth grandchild Emmett, on whom he doted.
Bill was predeceased by his parents Earl and Raissa (Berkman) Browder; by his ex-wife Nancy O'Brien Browder and stepdaughter Julie Browder; and two brothers Felix Browder and Andrew Browder.
Bill is survived by his loving wife Anne Lisbeth Moeller; three children, Risa Browder and husband John Moran, Dan Browder and partner Deb Eckheart, Emil Browder and wife Tenesha; and five grandchildren, Thomas Moran and wife Elizabeth Ding, Stephen Moran and wife Lucia Kobza, Lindsay Browder, Kevin Browder, and Emmett Browder.
Arrangements are under the direction of the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home.