Paul Sally

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Paul Joseph Sally, Junior (born January 29, 1933) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Chicago, where he is the director of undergraduate mathematics instruction. His research areas are p-adic analysis and representation theory.

Sally graduated from Boston College in 1954, where he is said to have been a star basketball player^{[citation needed]}, and soon began teaching junior high and high school mathematics at Boston College High School. He received his Ph.D. from Brandeis in 1965 and joined the University of Chicago faculty the same year.

Sally is widely influential in mathematics education. In 1983, Sally became the first director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, which is responsible for the "Chicago math" program. He founded Seminars for Elementary Specialists and Mathematics Educators (SESAME) in 1992. He cofounded the Young Scholars Program with Dr. Diane Herrmann, providing mathematical enrichment for gifted Chicago-area students in grades 7-12[1].

For his efforts, Sally was recognized with the Amoco undergraduate teaching award and by the MAA with the Deborah and Franklin Haimo Awards for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics in 2001.

He served as academic consultant for the 2005 film Proof, filmed at the University of Chicago and starring Anthony Hopkins. [2]^{[citation needed]}

Sally has been a type 1 diabetic since he was fifteen.[3] He wears an eye patch and has two prosthetic legs, which has caused him to be widely referred to as "Professor Pirate" around the University of Chicago campus^[1].