Draft:Nathaniel Whitaker

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Nathaniel Whitaker (1951-)^[1] is a professor and current head of the Mathematics and Statistics Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This department is notably large, comprising around 50 tenure and tenure-track professors, as well as 40 postdocs and lecturers. He has also served as Interim Dean of the College of Natural Sciences of UMass for the academic year 2022-2023. In his career as a professor and researcher, Whitaker has published over 40 peer-review papers on various topics in applied math^[2]. Specifically, Whitaker’s work specializes in mathematical biology, fluid mechanics, and tumor growth^[3].

Whitaker was born in North Carolina during the Jim Crow era in 1951. His grandparents were sharecroppers and his parents began their relationship as sharecroppers. In 1953, Whitaker and his family moved to Newport News, Virginia. In Newport News, Whitaker would grow up in a segregated housing complex known as Newport Park^[1][4], home to many African American mathematicians and scientists such as Dorothy Vaughan^[5], Mary Jackson^[6], and Katherine Johnson^[7] who worked at NASA as computers.

Whitaker would begin elementary school in 1956, attending the segregated Newsome Park Elementary school^[1][4]. In 1963, Whitaker would move to Hampton, Virginia and attend another segregated school, George Wythe Junior High School^[1][4]. In 1965, Virginia implemented the “Freedom of Choice” plan ^[8], allowing students like Whitaker to attend previous all White schools. Whitaker would go to Thorpe Junior High and then Hampton High School, previous all White schools^[1].

Whitaker’s time in these schools was difficult, and he has compared his experiences to that of the Invisible Man in the book by Ralph Ellison^[1]. He was grateful to have a friend from his previous school with him being isolated as being one of the very few black students at these schools.

After graduating from high school, Whitaker would attend Hampton Institute, a small, historically Black college for his undergraduate studies in mathematics^[1][4]. After graduating in 1974 with a B.A., Whitaker would work for the Army at Fort Monroe for a few years until he was accepted to the University of Cincinnati for a masters in mathematics^[1][4]. During his studies at the University of Cincinnati, Whitaker was encouraged to apply to a Ph.D.. program at the University of California Berkeley by one of his favorite professors^[1][4]. Whitaker would get married to his wife and graduate from the University of Cincinnati with a M.S. in 1981 and attend Berkeley the following year^[1][4].

Whitaker graduated from University of California Berkeley in 1987 and soon after began work on a tenure track for assistant professorship in 1988 at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass), an R1: Doctoral University ^[1]. In his thirty-three years in the UMass Math & Statistics Department he has co-authored around 40 peer-reviewed papers on topics concerning fluid mechanics and math biology and has over 827 citations^[2]. In addition to this, he has also published 5 papers with professors Panos Kevrekidis and Rudy Horne concerning mathematical physics ^[1].

Some of his most notable publications discuss models for tumor growth. In particular, one of his papers discusses the rate at which new blood vessels form in tumors using differential equations ^[9]. His work greatly contributes to further understanding of tumor angiogenesis. In addition to his work at UMass, Whitaker also greatly contributed to the AIMS Program set in place to help black students in the Amherst, Massachusetts school system receive personalized math education ^[1]. Many students in this program have proceeded to university. Whitaker received the University Distinguished Outreach Award and the UMass President's Award for his work ^[1].

He has also advised many students, including Idris Stovall, the first black student to receive a Ph.D. from UMass Amherst ^[1]. In January of 2018, Whitaker was offered the Head of Department position in the Math & Statistics department, which accepted and holds to this day. ^[1][3]. In July 2022, he temporarily stepped down as the head of the department to serve as the dean of the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst for the academic year of 2022-23.