Dr. Jack Kenneth Hale, 81, of Atlanta died December 9, 2009. He left eastern Kentucky in 1944 to attend Berea College in Berea KY. After graduating from Berea, he attended Purdue University for his doctor of philosophy degree in mathematics. Dr. Hale spent many years teaching and doing research in mathematics at Georgia Tech and Brown University. One of his most rewarding accomplishments was working with forty-seven PhD students. Some of his awards are the Chauvenet Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, British Carnegie Fellowship and Sigma XI sustained Research Award. Some of his memberships are Corresponding Member of the Brazilian Academy of Science, Honorary Fellow of Royal Society of Edinburgh and Foreign Member Polish Academy of Science. He received honorary degrees from Ghent, Belgium; Stuttgart, Germany; University Tecnia of Lisboa, Portugal; Rostock, Germany and Clark University, Worcester, MA.

Jack was among the most influential and respected persons in the area of modern dynamics, leading the exciting development of the field for the past four decades. What made Jack such an admirable person goes far beyond his professional achievement; it was his remarkable professionalism and dedication to work, his unselfishness and thoughtfulness to people, and his principle and persistence toward life. He never stopped working and helping the community and others even during the last remaining months of his life. Three issues of the Journal of Dynamics and Differential Equations will be in honor of Jack. An interview with Jack Hale appears in the Dynamical Systems Magazine.

Jack came to Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) in 1988 as a Professor and was named a Regents' Professor in 1990 in the School of Mathematics. He was a co-founder of the Center for Dynamical Systems and Nonlinear Studies (CDSNS) at Georgia Tech and served as Director of the CDSNS from 1989-1998.

He wrote 15 books, over 200 research papers, and supervised 48 Ph.D. students and numerous post docs. Most of his publications can be found on Google Scholar. The biennial Jack K. Hale Award was established in 2013 by Elsevier with the aim of distinguishing researchers who have made outstanding contributions in the fields of dynamics and differential equations.

In 2013 the First International Conference on Dynamics of Differetial Equations was held at Georgia Tech to honor the works of Jack Hale. The second conference, Dynamics of Evolution Equations will take place at CIRM in Luminy France during March 21-25, 2016. This conference is mainly devoted to the study of dynamical systems generated by ODEs and PDEs.

Springer published a very nicely written, detailed obituary.