David Goss was a longtime member of the Department of Mathematics at Ohio State. He received his PhD from Harvard in 1977 under the direction of Barry Mazur. His research was in algebraic number theory and algebraic geometry, where he made extensive contributions to the arithmetic theory of function fields.
Goss joined the Ohio State faculty in 1982 as an assistant professor and worked his way up through the ranks to become a professor in 1991, department chair from 2006 to 2010 and finally, a professor emeritus in 2013. In 2012, he was named an inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society. During his Ohio State tenure, Goss joined the editorial board of the Journal of Number Theory as associate editor in 1988 and editor in chief in 1999, a position he held for almost 20 years until his untimely death in April 2017.
Upon David's passing, his wife, Rita Eppler-Goss, established a memorial fund in his honor: the David Goss Technology and Academic Innovation Stimulus Fund. Its purpose is to support academics and researchers in the Department of Mathematics with their entrepreneurial academic endeavors. If you would like to contribute to the Goss Technology and Academic Innovation Stimulus Fund, please go to: go.osu.edu/Goss.