Background
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.
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 Arizona State University, where he completed a doctorate in 1967 under the supervision of Walter Tandy Scott.
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. 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 Arizona State University again as an associate professor in 1976, and was promoted to full professor in 1978. He chaired the Arizona State University mathematics department from 1982 to 1985.
In 1985, Bustoz founded the Summer Mathematics-Science Honors program for high school students, which continues at Arizona State University as the Joaquin Bustoz Mathematics-Science Honors Program.
Bustoz also worked on mathematics education on the Navajo Nation and the Pima reservations. He was killed by a car accident on August 13, 2003.
As well as the Mathematics-Science Honors program, the Joaquin Bustoz Junior. Professorship at Arizona State University, held by Carlos Castillo-Chavez, is named after Bustoz.