He was known for his work as a writer and editor of Function, a mathematics magazine aimed at high school students,[7] and as a biographer of ancient Greek mathematician Hypatia.
[9] Deakin moved to the University of Chicago in 1963 for graduate study, and completed his Ph.D. in 1966, under the supervision of mathematical biophysicist Herbert Landahl.
[10] He became a lecturer at Monash University in Melbourne in 1967, but then in 1970 moved to Papua New Guinea to become reader-in-charge in the mathematics department of the Institute of Higher Technical Education.
[12] The journal was published from 1977 to 2004, and Deakin became a founding member of its editorial board, its most frequent contributor, and, for much of its existence, its editor-in-chief.
[14] However, his book has been criticized for treating Hypatia more as an idealized icon, or a caricature of a female mathematician, than as a realistic person of her times.