Professor Emeritus Isaac Namioka passed away peacefully at home on September 25th, 2019.
Isaac was born in Japan on April 25th, 1928, and spent his boyhood in Himeji. After receiving his Electrical Engineering degree at Kobe University, Isaac moved to the United States to attend graduate school at Kansas University. At KU, he met Professor John Kelley, his PhD advisor and co-author of their textbook “Linear Topological Spaces”. To continue his graduate studies, he moved to Berkeley CA to attend the University of California, and it was there that he met Lensey Chao, his future wife and fellow graduate student in Mathematics. After receiving his doctorate, he and Lensey married in 1957 and moved to Ithaca, NY where he taught at Cornell University, and where they started their family. In 1963, he moved to Seattle where he became Professor of Mathematics at the University of Washington. In 2013, he became one of the Inaugural Class of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. Isaac was also a member of the Japanese Baptist Church in Seattle, and an avid photographer.
Isaac is survived by his wife of 62 years, Lensey Chao Namioka, his daughters Aki Namioka and Michi Garrison, his grandchildren Leila Garrison, Brendan Garrison and Sven Nilsson, and his son-in-law Erik Nilsson.
A memorial for Isaac will be held at the Arboretum Graham Visitor’s Center from 1:00-3:00 PM on November 16th, 2019.