Name: Alf van der Poorten (once "Alfie", but no  more, please!)
Married to: Joy (since 1972)
Son of: The late Dr David van der Poorten, and Marianne van der Poorten; yes, she's still going strong and is about to celebrate her 90th; that will be after she's been (with my sister, Rose Fekete) toa WIZO conference in Israel at the end of the year
Children Kate (1976) HR work, Manpower Inc; David (1978), medico about to become gastro- enterologist. (Joy and I have managed to marry both of them off, but grandchildren are likely to be some years away.)
Occupation: Mathematician (now Emeritus Professor, but busier than ever, mostly with short term overseas
research work). I turned out to be fairly good at doing sums. I was President of the Australian Mathematical Society 1996- 98, was awarded an honorary doctorate at Bordeaux in 1998, and
received the G. Szekeres Medal of the Aust MS for career contribution in 2002; my book "Notes on Fermat's Last Theorem" was awarded the Association of American Publishers Professional/Scholarly Publishing Award, 1996, for Excellence in Mathematics. Currently (1998--2006) I am a member of the International Mathematical Union's Committee on Electronic Information and Communication.
Education: BSc PhD [Maths] BA [Philosophy] MBA (UNSW)
Years in Betar: 1957--1963 (Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'aretzr, with Clive Kessler, 1960). Natziv ; Mefaked Machoz Sydney; Mefaked Machane (several). First camp, Berowra 1957--58; after that pretty well every camp anywhere in Australia until I left Betar in mid 1963.
Honours: Australian Youth Citizenship Award 1966 (awarded at the Australian Citizenship Convention for
"attainments in community service, academic achievement and youth leadership, whereby he has provided an outstanding  example to the community"; this was in part for my work in Betar).
People I knew (and who knew me): Almost anyone mentioned on the CD; somehow I got to know just about all the oldies that had gone before and of course pretty well everyone of my time.
Those I see now: No one, really. But Danny Rosing gets in touch with my mother whenever he's in Sydney; and I spent an afternoon with Shimshon Feder when he was in Sydney not all that long ago. And then there's George Berkovits whose son Danny is going out with my niece Anita (my sister Rose's third daughter), and ...
THEN....
..... [date indeterminate]

...AND NOW.

Alf passed away October 9. 2010. This page is being retained as a memorial to him.
Alf van der Poorten
Contributed: 2004