In memoriam: Johannes C.C. Nitsche

Johannes C.C. Nitsche, of Minneapolis, Minn., retired professor of mathematics and former head of the School of Mathematics, died Aug. 9. He was 81.

A distinguished scholar, researcher, and educator, Nitsche made outstanding contributions to the theory of minimal surfaces and obtained an important uniqueness theorem for such surfaces.

Nitsche did his graduate work in Germany, at the University of Goettingen and Leipzig University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1951. He joined the University of Minnesota in 1957 and served as head of the School of Mathematics from 1971 through 1978. He retired in 2000.