We are deeply saddened to share with the community the news of the passing of Wolmer Vasconcelos, at the age of 84. Here are two news articles about his life, both in Portuguese: 1 2
Vasconcelos was born in Pernambuco, Brasil. He got his PhD in 1966, at the University of Chicago, under Irving Kaplansky. Aron Simis writes (in Portuguese) that “his thesis was an alternative, simpler proof of Serre’s homological characterization of local rings. He started his career at Cornell, and then moved to Rutgers. He wrote more than 120 research papers, and also several books that are well regarded and cited in the commutative algebra community. This community loses one of its most celebrated and beloved members.”