During Korsmeyer’s illness, Benz said, “He had two priorities: his family and the people who worked for him.”

Described as an “omnivorous” worker, Korsmeyer was admired by many for his generous spirit.

“Stan was different,” said friend and colleague Stephen Sallan. “Uniformly, 100 percent loved by all of us.”

Korsmeyer is survived by his wife, Susan J. (Reynard) Korsmeyer, sons Jason Louis and Evan John Korsmeyer, and parents Willard and Carnell Korsmeyer.

b>Saunders Mac Lane

Saunders Mac Lane, an influential mathematician and former Harvard professor who co-founded category theory, died on April 14 from internal bleeding from heart disease. He was 95.

Mac Lane was most famous for the ground-breaking paper he co-wrote with Samuel Eilenberg of Columbia in 1945 which introduced category theory, a framework to show how mathematical structures relate to each other. This branch of algebra has since influenced most mathematical fields and also has functions in philosophy and linguistics, but was first dismissed by many practical mathematicians as too abstract to be useful.

Gade University Professor of Mathematics Barry Mazur, a friend of the late Mac Lane, recalled that the paper had at first been rejected from a lower-caliber mathematical journal because the editor thought that it was “more devoid of content” than any other he had read.

“Saunders wrote back and said, ‘That’s the point,’” Mazur said. “And in some ways that’s the genius of it. It’s the barest, most Beckett-like vocabulary that incorporates the theory and nothing else.”

The Norwich, Conn. local received his bachelor’s degree at Yale in 1930 and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1931, before going on to obtain a doctorate from the University at Gottingen, Germany in 1934.

After brief teaching stints at several colleges, including Harvard, he later returned to the University of Chicago and remained a professor there for over three decades.

His brother, David Mac Lane, explained that despite his prominence, the famed mathematician was often reluctant to take on administrative posts.

“He was more interested in ideas and creativity than administrative duties,” David Mac Lane said. “Mathematics was the major function of his life....He loved to teach and do research and he enjoyed his work at Harvard very much.”

Mac Lane is survived by his brother, David, his second wife, Osa, two daughters, and a grandson.

John E. Mack