Dean G. Hoffman

Dean Gunnar Hoffman was an American mathematician who worked primarily in graph theory, design theory, number theory, and puzzles.

Early life and education

Hoffman was born on May 8, 1949. He was a backgammon player and would commonly play with students and collaborators. In 1970, he obtained his BA in mathematics from Union College. He then went on to be advised by David Klarner and Ron Mullin and obtain his PhD in mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 1976.

He began working at Auburn University in 1977 until his death in 2022.

He has been awarded the Marie Kraska Award for the Excellence in Teaching in 2017 and 2022.
In 2008, he was an invited speaker for the first Istanbul Design Theory and Combinatorics Conference which was held to celebrate the 70th birthday of Curt Lindner, one of his collaborators. In 2014, Hoffman was invited to give the keynote address for the 8th Annual Troy MathFest at Troy University at Montgomery.

The Hoffman's packing puzzle is an assembly puzzle which is named after Hoffman, who described it in 1978. The puzzle consists of 27 identical rectangular cuboids, each of whose edges have three different lengths. The goal of the puzzle is to assemble them all to fit within a cube whose edge length is the sum of the three lengths.

He died on November 11, 2022.
His family created the Dr. Dean G. Hoffman Endowed Graduate Award in his honor.