Warren Douglas Nichols was born on December 5, 1948, in London, Ontario, Canada. He attended the University of Waterloo as a Rene Descartes Fellow, and was named a Woodrow Wilson Fellow upon graduation, Entering the University of Chicago as a University Fellow, he won the Meyer Prize, took topic exams in Algebraic Topology and in Commutative Algebra, and then wrote a thesis in Hopf Algebras under the direction of Irving Kaplansky. He received his Ph.D. in 1975.
After three years as an Instructor at the Pennsylvania State University, Nichols moved to the Florida State University, where he has been Professor since 1988. For his 1995-96 sabbatical, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Institute at Cornell University. His 2002-03 sabbatical was spent at Carnegie Mellon University, participating in their Financial Mathematics program.
Professor Nichols has had five doctoral students to date, graduating in 1985, 1988, 1992, 1996, and 2000.
Professor Nichols' over 30 publications have a very broad scope. Although his most influential publications to date have been in Hopf algebras, he has written a number of papers in commutative algebra, and has also published in general ring theory, Lie theory, and theoretical computer science.
Professor Nichols' service commitments have included the Faculty Evaluation Committee, Chair of the Professional Degrees Committee, the Arts and Sciences Policy Committee, the Faculty Senate, and the Bryan Hall Steering Committee. He played an influential role in the development of a plan for a departmental focus on Symbolic Computation. He is currently a member of the Graduate Committee.
Professor Nichols has given invited talks at meetings and universities across the United States and in Canada. He was honored in 1992 by the University of Waterloo, in conjunction with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of its Department of Pure Mathematics. He has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation in support of his research.
Married to the former Julie Ann Kowalski, Nichols is the proud father of Jenna and Ross, twins, who are currently freshmen at the University of Florida.