Iranian thinker
Ebadollah S. Mahmoodian
Ebadollah S. MahmoodianGraph theory and combinatorics (Mathematics)Iranian1943–2024
Life and Thought
Ebadollah S. Mahmoodian (1943–2024) was an Iranian mathematician who spent four decades as a professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences of Sharif University of Technology, working in graph theory — particularly graph coloring — and combinatorial designs. He served as head of the Sharif mathematics department and as president of the Iranian Mathematical Society, and is known as one of the academic mentors of Maryam Mirzakhani during her studies at Sharif.
Ebadollah S. Mahmoodian was born on 18 May 1943 in Zanjan, Iran. He completed his bachelor's degree at the University of Tehran in 1965 and his master's degree at Shiraz University in 1968. He then went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a further master's degree and a PhD in mathematics in 1971 and 1975 respectively; his doctoral thesis, "A Critical Case Method of Proof in Combinatorial Mathematics," was supervised by Herbert Wilf.
Starting in 1983, Mahmoodian was a professor at the Department of Mathematical Sciences of Sharif University of Technology for four decades. He served as head of that department from 2002 to 2004 and as president of the Iranian Mathematical Society from 2003 to 2006. He was also a member of the national committee of the Iranian Mathematical Olympiad and a founding member of the Iranian Society of Cryptology.
His main research areas were graph theory, particularly graph coloring, and combinatorial designs, including defining sets. He co-edited the volume "Combinatorics Advances" and published numerous papers in international journals over his career. Mahmoodian is also known for mentoring and collaborating with Maryam Mirzakhani during her studies at Sharif.
In 2011 he received the Allameh Tabatabaei Science Award from Iran's National Elites Foundation. Mahmoodian died on 28 December 2024 at the age of 81.