Paul Libois

Paul Libois was a Belgian mathematician and communist politician. Born on 6 April 1901 in Diest, he studied physics and mathematics at the Université libre de Bruxelles, where he became an assistant and then a professor of geometry and group theory, and he served as dean of the Faculty of Sciences from 1958 to 1960. His doctoral advisor is recorded as Federigo Enriques. Among his best known students were Jacques Tits, who took his 1950 doctorate under him, and Francis Buekenhout. In politics he sat for the Communist Party of Belgium: he was elected provincial senator for Brabant, serving from 1946 to 1949, and then senator for the Nivelles district in 1950, and he was expelled from the party in 1954 for factionalism. He died in Schaerbeek, in 1990 according to the main text of the French Wikipedia article and in 1991 according to its infobox and categories.