Charalambos D. Aliprantis

Charalambos ?Roko? D. Aliprantis, 62, died in West Lafayette, Indiana on February 27, 2009 after fighting lung cancer for over 6 years. He is survived by his wife Bernadette, his children Claire and Dionissi, and his brothers Christopher and Spiros. Roko was born to Dr. Dionysios and Sofronia Aliprantis on May 12, 1946 in the village of Lakithra on the Greek island of Cephalonia. He was raised during some of the most turbulent years of modern Greek history, surviving hunger, disease, civil war, a catastrophic earthquake, and dictatorship. He came to the United States to study for his PhD in Mathematics at the California Institute of Technology, which he completed in 1973. Roko spent 22 years on the faculty at Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis, and the last 11 years at Purdue University in West Lafayette, where he was a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Mathematics. Roko?s areas of specialization included economic theory, where he made key contributions to general equilibrium theory, and functional analysis and operator theory, where he was recognized as one of the leading experts in the area of ordered vector spaces and positive ope...[more]

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ors. Roko authored or coauthored over 90 scholarly articles and twelve books, including the widely used textbooks Principles of Real Analysis (with O. Burkinshaw) and Infinite Dimensional Analysis: A Hitchhiker?s Guide (with K. Border). He was noted not only for the clarity and elegance of his writing in both Economics and Mathematics, but also for his tremendous service to the profession. This included his organization of a biennial international conference on economic theory, The Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory, the founding of the scholarly journals Economic Theory and Annals of Finance, and his work as Editor-in-Chief of Positivity, a mathematical research journal. In addition to his professional work, Roko was also deeply devoted to his family and proud of his Greek heritage. Some of his happiest times were spent with his family on summer trips to his beloved home island of Cephalonia. His family and peers regarded him as an intellectual leader and a fair-minded individual of integrity. Roko found beauty in Mathematics, History, Philosophy, Greek culture, and the natural world, and he believed strongly in the power of the human mind to improve the world. In lieu of flowers, his family asks that donations be made in his memory to either The Timmy Foundation, 22 E. 22nd St, Indianapolis, IN 46202; IU Foundation/TOP Research, IU Simon Cancer Center, PO Box 660245, Indianapolis, IN 46266; or St. Elizabeth?s Hospice, 1415 Salem Street, Suite 202W, Lafayette, IN 47904. The viewing will be on Sunday, March 1st, from 1-5 pm at the Leppert Mortuary, Nora Chapel in Indianapolis, and the funeral will begin at 11am on Monday, March 2nd at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in Carmel, with visitation beginning at 10 am on Monday. There will also be a service soon in Cephalonia. You are invited to visit www.leppertmortuary.com where you may sign the online guest book, leave a personal message to the family or make a memorial contribution.