Arizona State University faculty

Joaquín Bustoz Jr. (1939–2003) was an American mathematician who worked as a professor of mathematics at Arizona State University. His mathematical research concerned functional analysis, including orthogonal polynomials and special functions, but he was primarily known as a mentor to underrepresented minorities in mathematics.Bustoz was born in Tempe, Arizona; his parents worked on the local farms and also for the Tempe Elementary School District, which eventually named the Joaquin and Ramona Bustoz Elementary School after them. He graduated from Arizona State University in 1962 with a degree in mathematics, and after two years in California working for Univac returned to ASU, where he completed a doctorate in 1967 under the supervision of Walter Tandy Scott. After teaching at the University of Cincinnati from 1969 to 1976, during which he also spent a year at the National University of Colombia as a Fulbright Scholar, he returned to ASU again as an associate professor in 1976, and was promoted to full professor in 1978. He chaired the ASU mathematics department from 1982 to 1985.In 1985, Bustoz founded the Summer Math–Science Honors program for high school students, which continues at ASU as the Joaquin Bustoz Math–Science Honors Program. Bustoz also worked on mathematics education on the Navajo Nation and the Pima reservations. For his efforts, president Bill Clinton honored him in 1996 with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.He was killed by a car accident on August 13, 2003. As well as the Math–Science Honors program, the Joaquin Bustoz Jr. Professorship at ASU, held by Carlos Castillo-Chavez, is named after Bustoz.

Alleen Pace Nilsen is an American literary scholar, linguist, and one of the pioneers of both humor studies and children's literature studies. She is Professor Emeritus in the Department of English at Arizona State University, where she was previously the director of the English Education Program.
Together with her husband Don Nilsen, she co-founded the International Society for Humor Studies.

Abraham Sinkov (August 22, 1907 – January 19, 1998) was a US cryptanalyst. An early employee of the U.S. Army's Signal Intelligence Service, he held several leadership positions during World War II, transitioning to the new National Security Agency after the war, where he became a deputy director. After retiring in 1962, he taught mathematics at Arizona State University.

Peterson Zah (December 2, 1937 – March 7, 2023) was an American politician who held several offices with the Navajo Nation. From 1983 to 1987, he was chairman of the Navajo Nation, its then head of government. At its 1991 restructuring, he became the first president of the Navajo Nation, until 1995. He then worked at Arizona State University as special adviser to the president on American Indian Affairs and consulted companies willing to work with his nation.

Martha E. Bernal (April 13, 1931, San Antonio, Texas – September 28, 2001) was an American clinical psychologist. She earned her doctoral degree at Indiana University Bloomington in 1962. She was the first Latina to receive a doctorate degree in psychology in the United States. She helped with the treatment and assessment of children with behavioral problems and worked to develop organizations that have a focus on ethnic groups.

Donald Carl Johanson (born June 28, 1943) is an American paleoanthropologist. He is known for discovering, with Yves Coppens and Maurice Taieb, the fossil of a female hominin australopithecine known as "Lucy" in the Afar Triangle region of Hadar, Ethiopia.