Early Life
Mumford was born in Worth, West Sussex in England, of an English father and American mother. His father William started an experimental school in Tanzania and worked for the then newly created United Nations.
In high school, he was a finalist in the prestigious Westinghouse Science Talent Search. After attending the Phillips Exeter Academy, Mumford went to Harvard, where he became a student of Oscar Zariski. At Harvard, he became a Putnam fellow in 1955 and 1956. He completed his Ph.D. in 1961, with a thesis entitled Existence of the moduli scheme for curves of any genus.
He met his first wife, Erika Jentsch, at Radcliffe College. After Erika died in 1988, he married his second wife, Jenifer Gordon.
He and Erika had four children. Steve (born 1960) is a published artist residing in New York City, Peter (born 1962) is a professional photographer and web developer living in Seattle, Jeremy (born 1969) is a historian, while Suchitra (born 1970, now Suchitra Baranoff) has worked for more than fifteen years in the field of international adoption.
Read more about this topic: David Mumford
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“As I went forth early on a still and frosty morning, the trees looked like airy creatures of darkness caught napping; on this side huddled together, with their gray hairs streaming, in a secluded valley which the sun had not penetrated; on that, hurrying off in Indian file along some watercourse, while the shrubs and grasses, like elves and fairies of the night, sought to hide their diminished heads in the snow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The melancholy of having to count souls
Where they grow fewer and fewer every year
Is extreme where they shrink to none at all.
It must be I want life to go on living.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)