Moore, Robert Lee
Dallas-born Robert Lee “R.L.” Moore was a noted figure in the new generation of American-educated researchers of science in the early 20th century. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, earning both bachelors and masters degrees in 1901. In 1905, he graduated with a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago, which had a renowned department of research mathematics. After his studies, Moore taught at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Princeton University and Northwestern University.
In 1910, he married Margaret MacLellan Key, and the two moved to Philadelphia, where Dr. Moore took a position at the University of Pennsylvania. Here he developed a teaching method where he gave students assumptions and gradually introduced hypotheses which they had to prove or disprove. This pedagogy, whose roots are in the socratic and inquiry-based models, became known as the moore method.
In 1920, Dr. Moore started a five-decade long career as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, living in this house (originally located one block west) for most of that time. He guided forty-seven students to doctoral degrees and conducted research, including his principal work, foundations of point set theory (1932). He published over 60 papers on this topic, establishing a branch of topology. Moore was also elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1932) and named president of the American Mathematical Society (1937). He retired in 1969, and in 1973, the university named a newly constructed building for him (R.L. Moore hall). Today, Dr. R.L. Moore is remembered as a prominent mathematics researcher, an influential teacher and a mentor to students who would become leading mathematics figures themselves.