OBITUARY

DR. MARTA C. BUNGE (1938-2022)

Personal Website: Marta Bunge's Home Page

Former member of the Department, Dr. Marta C. Bunge, passed away on October 25, 2022 in Brooklyn, New York. 

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1938, Dr. Bunge was an Argentine-Canadian mathematician specializing in category theory. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania (PhD, 1966), she had come to McGill as a postdoctoral fellow and had joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor three years later. She went up the ranks and became a professor emeritus in 2003.

Dr. Bunge was known for her work on synthetic calculus of variation and synthetic differential topology. She was, among others, the co-author of the books “Singular Coverings of Toposes” (Lecture Notes in Mathematics 1890, Springer, 2006) and “Synthetic Differential Topology” (London Mathematical Society Lecture Note Series 448, Cambridge University Press, 2018). 

Dr. Bunge (née Cavallo) was married to Mario Bunge (1919-2020), a famous physicist and philosopher of science (https://www.mcgill.ca/philosophy/people/emeritus-faculty/bunge). They had two children, Eric and Silvia, now respectively an architect based in New York and a cognitive neuroscientist at UC Berkeley.

In addition to mathematics, Marta Bunge was passionate about classical music, literature, cinema, history, world affairs, and travel. As she embarks on her last journey, the Department of Mathematics and Statistics offers their sincere condolences to the bereaved family members and friends.

Written by Christian Genest, Interim Chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics