Funeral Details

Jack David Cowan died of kidney failure on June 28th, 2025, surrounded by his beloved wife of 67 years, Jillian (Abrams), his son, Jeremy, and daughter, Raina.
Jack Cowan was born in 1933 in Leeds, England. As a school boy at George Heriot’s school in Edinburgh, Scotland, he showed an affinity for mathematics, and his mother, the late Isabella Baum (Killen) encouraged him to excel in his studies, which he did. Jack’s Dad, Samuel Cowan died when he was only 20 years old, leaving him to help support his mum and two younger brothers, Malcolm and Tony. Jack received a degree in physics at the University of Edinburgh (1955). Following his undergraduate studies, he worked at Ferranti Labs, and earned a post-graduate diploma in electrical engineering from the Imperial College of London. He then received a fellowship to MIT, where he earned an MA. He later received his PhD from Imperial College of London, the first ever on the statistical mechanics of neural networks.
In 1967, Jack became Chair of the Committee on Mathematical Biology at the University of Chicago and moved his young family to Chicago. He was a professor in the Department of Mathematics and was affiliated with the university’s Ph.D. Program in Computational Neuroscience. His interdisciplinary work bridges mathematics, neuroscience, and physics. Jack was a professor and advisor to many students and faculty at UChicago. He published/co-authored several papers on Neural Networks. He also wrote about artificial intelligence back in 1958! Jack was named UChicago Professor Emeritus in 2022.
Jack was an avid Chelsea football club fan, and a soccer player in his youth. He also played table tennis and pool. He enjoyed fine Italian, Japanese and Indian food, good fish and chips, listening to jazz and swing music, studying dinosaurs and other fossils, astronomy, and fly fishing, especially in the Pere Marquette River with fishing guide Walt, his son Jeremy, and his son in-law, Michael. He
also enjoyed the Chicago Botanic Gardens. He passed on much of his love for music, art and nature to his children. He also loved cats (especially the late Sagwa), surrealist art, reading, old films, James Bond, Star Trek and Star Wars (and lots of other Sci-Fi) and Disney Pixar movies. He had a fine sense of humor, and relished telling jokes. He was witty yet soft-spoken, generous, opinionated when it mattered, and valued honesty, academics, hard work, humor, democracy, decency, fairness and being a law-abiding person.
He is survived by his wife of 67 years, Jillian (Abrams), brother Malcolm (Andrea) Cowan, brother Tony Cowan (Krystyna Knottnerus), his son Jeremy Cowan (Tanya Lake), daughter Raina Cowan (Michael Black) and granddaughter, Natalie; nephews: the late Darren; Dennis, Elliot and niece Samantha, as well as all of their children.
The Cowan family extends their sincere thanks to the caregivers who helped take care of Jack and keep him as comfortable as possible, especially Nisha Patel and John Thomas.
Services will be held Sunday, July 6th, from 3-5 PM at The Carrington, 3501 Northeast Parkway, Lincolnwood, IL 60712.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Jack Cowan’s honor to the Math Circles of Chicago, 2907 S Wabash Ave, Chicago, IL 60616, mc2.ejoinme.org/donate or The Chicago Botanic Gardens, 1000 Lake Cook Rd, Glencoe, IL 60022, www.chicagobotanic.org/donate.
Arrangements by Chicago Jewish Funerals - Skokie Chapel, 847.229.8822, www.cjfinfo.com