Eells was born on 25 October 1926, in Cleveland, Ohio. Eells studied mathematics at
Bowdoin College in
Maine and earned his undergraduate degree in 1947. After graduation he spent one year teaching mathematics at
Robert College in
Istanbul and starting in 1948 was for two years an instructor at
Amherst College in
Amherst, Massachusetts. Next he undertook graduate study at
Harvard University, where in 1954 he received his
Ph.D. under
Hassler Whitney with thesis
Geometric Aspects of Integration Theory. In the academic year 1955–1956 he was at the
Institute for Advanced Study (and subsequently in 1962–1963, 1972–1973, 1977, and 1982). He taught at
Columbia University for several years. In 1964 he became a full professor at
Cornell University. In 1963 and in 1966–1967 he was at the
University of Cambridge, and after a visit to the new mathematics department developed by
Erik Christopher Zeeman at the
University of Warwick Eells became a professor of mathematical analysis there in 1969. Eells organized many of the University of Warwick Symposia in mathematics. In 1986 he became the first director of the mathematics section of the
Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in
Trieste; for six years he served as director in addition to his appointment at the University of Warwick. In 1992 he retired and lived in
Cambridge. Eells did research on
global analysis, especially,
harmonic maps on
Riemannian manifolds, which are important in the theory of
minimal surfaces and
theoretical physics. His doctoral students included
John C. Wood. In 1970 he was an invited speaker at the
International Mathematical Congress in
Nice (
On Fredholm manifolds with K. D. Elworthy). He was co-editor of the collected works of
Hassler Whitney. Eells's doctoral students include Luc Lemaire,
Peter Štefan (1941–1978), Giorgio Valli (1960–1999) and . Eells was married since 1950 and had a son and three daughters. ==Publications==