Renowned Ghanaian mathematician Prof Francis Allotey dies at 85

The Ghanaian renowned mathematical physicist, Professor Francis Kofi Ampenyin Allotey, has died at age 85, Graphic Online has gathered.

He was said to have died at a hospital in Germany on Thursday.

Family sources who confirmed the death, said Prof. Allotey was in good Thursday morning but complained of body pains around 10 am and was rushed to the hospital where he died.

Biography of Prof Allotey

Prof Francis Kofi Allotey was born at Saltpond in the Central Region of Ghana in 1932.

He is known for the "Allotey Formalism" which arose from his work on soft X-rayspectroscopy.

As a founding fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, in 1974, he became the first Ghanaian full professor of mathematics and head of the Department of Mathematics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

Prof Allotey was the President of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS) and a member of a number of international scientific organisations including the International Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics (ICTP).

He was Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), the President of the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Ghana (AIMS-Ghana).

He was also a holder of master's and doctorate degrees from Princeton University and the diploma of Imperial College (1960).

He was also an honorary fellow of the IOP Institute of Physics.

The Professor Francis Allotey Graduate School was established in 2009 at the Accra Institute of Technology in his honour.