Charles Sims (mathematician)

Charles Coffin Sims (April 14, 1937 – October 23, 2017[1][2]) was an American mathematician best known for his work in group theory.

[3] He did his graduate studies at Harvard University, where he was a student of John G. Thompson and received his Ph.D. degree in 1963.

In his thesis, he enumerated p-groups, giving sharp asymptotic upper and lower bounds.

Sims is one of the founders of computational group theory and is the eponym of the Schreier–Sims algorithm.

During that period he served, in particular, as Department Chair (1982–84) and Associate Provost for Computer Planning (1984–87).