Eduard Stiefel

He received his Ph.D. in 1935 under Heinz Hopf; his dissertation was titled "Richtungsfelder und Fernparallelismus in n-dimensionalen Mannigfaltigkeiten".Besides his academic pursuits, Stiefel was also active as a military officer, rising to the rank of colonel in the Swiss army during World War II.Stiefel achieved his full professorship at ETH Zurich in 1943, founding the Institute for Applied Mathematics five years later.The objective of the new institute was to design and construct an electronic computer (the Elektronische Rechenmaschine der ETH, or ERMETH).During this time, he met Magnus Hestenes and many other scientists at the National Bureau of Standards and these professional associations served him well during the remainder of his career at Zurich.
Eduard Stiefel (right) together with Otto Volk [ de ] in Oberwolfach , 1978
ZürichMathematicsETH ZürichDoctoral advisorHeinz HopfCorrado BöhmWerner GysinPeter HenriciMax RösslerAmbros SpeiserOberwolfachmathematicianCornelius LanczosMagnus Hestenesconjugate gradient methodStiefel–Whitney classesreal vector bundlecharacteristic classesSwiss Federal Institute of TechnologyhabilitationWorld War IIETH ZurichInstitute for Applied MathematicsERMETHUnited StatesNational Bureau of StandardsZurichStiefel manifoldStiefel–Whitney classJohn Todd'sMathematics Genealogy Project