De Witt Sumners

{{Short description|American mathematician}}

De Witt Lee Sumners is an American mathematician, having been the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University.{{Cite web |url=http://registrar.fsu.edu/bulletin/undergraduate/information/distinguished_faculty/ |title=Distinguished Faculty |publisher=fsu.edu |access-date=March 6, 2017}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.math.fsu.edu/~sumners/ |title=Dewitt Sumners |publisher=fsu.edu |access-date=March 6, 2017}} He is known for his research in knot theory, topological fluid dynamics, and their application to DNA.{{Cite web |url=https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=De+Witt+Sumners&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C44&as_sdtp= |title=De Witt Summers |access-date=August 11, 2017}}

Sumners earned his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of Cambridge under the supervision of John F. P. Hudson.{{mathgenealogy|id=10311}} He retired in 2007, and became a professor emeritus. In 2012, he was named as one of the inaugural Fellows of the American Mathematical Society.[http://artsandsciences.fsu.edu/article/de-witt-sumners-named-inaugural-fellow-american-mathematical-society De Witt Sumners named an inaugural fellow of American Mathematical Society], Florida State University, September 20, 2012.