Michael S. Mahoney, historian of science and devoted faculty member, dies

Michael S. Mahoney, who earned his Ph.D. from Princeton and then dedicated his 40-year academic career in the history of science to the University, died Wednesday, July 23, at the University Medical Center at Princeton. The 69-year-old professor of history did not recover from cardiac arrest suffered Friday, July 18, during his regular swim at Dillon Pool on campus. "His was a vigorous personality, and he was a superb teacher both of undergraduate and graduate students as well as a brilliant interlocutor in scholarly, or indeed other, discussions," said Charles Gillispie, the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History Emeritus, with whom Mahoney studied as a graduate student. A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, Mahoney came to Princeton in 1962 after studying for two years at the University of Munich as a German Foreign Exchange Service Fellow. While working on his doctorate in history and in history of science at Princeton, he served as an instructor and was appointed an assistant professor upon the completion of his degree in 1967. Mahoney divided his research and teaching between the development of the mathematical sciences from antiquity to 1700 and the recent history of computing and information technology.