| Birth Date: | 23 May 1936 |
| Nationality: | Scottish |
| Fields: | Mathematics |
| Workplaces: | University of St Andrews |
| Alma Mater: | University of Oxford |
| Thesis Title: | Some Problems on the Theory of Semigroups |
| Thesis1 Url: | and |
| Thesis2 Url: | )--> |
| Thesis Year: | 1962 |
| Doctoral Advisor: | Graham Higman |
| Awards: | Keith Prize |
| Spouses: | )--> |
| Partners: | )--> |
John Mackintosh Howie (23 May 1936 – 26 December 2011) was a Scottish mathematician and prominent semigroup theorist.[1]
Howie was educated at Robert Gordon's College, Aberdeen, the University of Aberdeen and Balliol College, Oxford, where he wrote a Ph.D. thesis under the direction of Graham Higman.
In 1966 the University of Stirling was established with Walter D. Munn (fr) at head of the department of mathematics. Munn recruited Howie to teach there.
According to Christopher Hollings,
...a 'British school' of semigroup theory cannot be said to have taken off properly until the mid-1960s when John M. Howie completed an Oxford DPhil in semigroup theory (partly under Preston's influence) and Munn began to supervise research students in semigroups (most notably, Norman R. Reilly).[2]
He won the Keith Prize of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1979–81. He was Regius Professor of Mathematics at the University of St Andrews from 1970 to 1997. No successor to this chair was named until 2015 when Igor Rivin was appointed.
Howie was charged with reviewing universal, comprehensive secondary education in Scotland, which was viewed as failing its students. Impressed with education in Denmark, his committee proposed a tracking scheme to improve academic outcomes, and communicated recommendations in Upper Secondary Education in Scotland (1992).[3] [4]