Our longtime colleague Jerry Tunnell died in a bicycle accident on April 1, 2022. The following tribute comes from Steve Miller:
Jerry Tunnell was an active member of the Rutgers Number Theory group for nearly 40 years. He advised 7 PhD students and shaped the careers of many more in his brilliant courses on algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry. Jerry's deep understanding of the latter led to particularly insightful courses on algebraic geometry, with a familiarity and unique approach which is sadly now lost to humanity.
Many of Jerry's research works will still be studied by mathematicians a century after they were written. His most famous accomplishment, the Langlands-Tunnell Theorem, is one of the foundations on which the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem was built. Perhaps even more striking in many respects was his work on the congruent number problem, a paper dense with repeated brilliant insights into the relation between an ancient problem about triangles and several cutting-edge aspects about L-functions, modular forms, and elliptic curves. Jerry's work on supercuspidal representations was also pioneering. Each of these deserves much more space and description than can be given here.
Jerry's depth of understanding and knowledge served as an amazing resource for our number theory community. His friendliness and approachability will surely be missed.