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Bernard Gelbaum, former administrator, math professor
Bernard R. Gelbaum, emeritus professor in the Department of Mathematics, College of Arts and Sciences, died on March 22 in Laguna Beach, Calif., where he had moved after retiring from UB in 1996. He was 83.
Gelbaum's undergraduate studies at Columbia University were interrupted by World War II. He served as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Signal Corp as part of a scientific intelligence unit and was among the first to reach the concentration camp at Buchenwald.
After the war, he completed his doctorate at Princeton University in 1948 and joined the mathematics faculty at the University of Minnesota, where he remained until 1964. He then went on to become the first chair of the mathematics department at the new University of California, Irvine, where he also served as acting dean and associate dean of physical sciences.
He came to UB in 1971 as vice president for academic affairs and professor of mathematics in 1971.
During his academic career, Gelbaum published eight books, the best-known of which was "Counterexamples in Analysis." He was a recipient of the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching.
UB colleagues remember Gelbaum as an impeccably dressed gentleman with old-fashioned courtesy, an impish sense of humor and a bicycle. He frequently rode his bicycle to work through the cold winters of Minnesota, and continued the practice while living in Western New York.