Lars V. Ahlfors has been named the first William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics. The new Professorship honors the memory of a former Harvard professor, one of the great American geometers of his generation.

Professor Ahlfors, winner of the Field's Medal for Mathematical Research at the International Congress of Mathematics in 1936, is especially known for his work in the theory of functions of a complex variable, Riemann surfaces, and conformal and quasi-conformal mappings. He is author of 'Complex Analysis" and co-author (with L. Sario) of "Riemann Surfaces."

He was born in Helsingfors, Finland, and received the Ph.D. from the University of Helsingfors in 1930. He has been professor of Mathematics at Harvard since 1946 and earlier taught at Helsingfors and the University of Zurich. Professor Ahlfors is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and holds an honorary LL.D, from Boston College. He lives with his wife and daughter in Winchester.