Duncan Buell named 2024 College of Science Alumni of the Year

Dr. Duncan Buell was recently honored as the 2024 College of Science Alumni of the Year. Dr. Buell graduated from the University of Arizona in 1971 with a bachelor’s in mathematics, continuing a family legacy of U of A alumni that began in the early 1900s.

Dr. Buell finished his doctorate in mathematics at the University of Illinois Chicago in 1976 and taught at Carleton University in Ontario and Bowling Green State University, eventually earning tenure at Louisiana State University in 1982. In 1986, he moved to the new National Security Agency-sponsored Supercomputing Research Center in Maryland. Among other things, he managed the build of a novel computer now standard in high-end computers. He was part of a team receiving a Meritorious Unit Citation from DCI George Tenet for “the largest single computation in the history of the U. S. intelligence community.”

In 2000, Dr. Buell moved to the University of South Carolina, serving nine years as department chair in computer science and a year as interim dean. In 2013, he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Buell’s research has been in applications of computing: number theory, cryptography, information retrieval, digital humanities and election data analysis. In 2016, Dr. Buell founded the Duncan Buell Everything is Mathematics Public Lecture Series Endowment to promote public engagement with mathematics. The series is designed to captivate non-expert audiences, highlighting the relevance and beauty of mathematics in everyday lives.