I am heartbroken about Phil's passing. Phil was my friend and a very important mentor to me. Phil was also one of the nicest persons I have ever met. 

I met Phil when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Ottawa in my first year, I took group theory from him. After that I took various other classes from him like linear algebra and history of mathematics, which was a very fun class! Near the end of undergrad when I deciding what area of research to study, Phil was the one who first mentioned category theory to me. Afterwards, through all of my grad school, Phil was still a mentor to me: always supporting my research and listening to my ideas. But more importantly, Phil became a friend. We would often catch up at the FMCS conference or whenever I was passing through Ottawa again. We also both visited Edinburgh at the same time, and often went on hikes together then. Even this past year, Phil was still encouraging me. 

I will miss Phil truly. Thank you for all the support, encourage, guidance, mentorship, friendship, and kindness you have shown me over the years. May you rest in peace.

— JS PL 

On Dec 18, 2023, at 11:10 PM, Richard Blute <rblute@uottawa.ca> wrote:

 

 

It is with great sadness that we convey the news to the category theory community that our good friend and colleague Phil Scott passed away this morning (18^th December, 2023) after a long battle with cancer.

 

Phil’s many contributions to category theory are well known. Phil and Jim Lambek essentially invented the field of categorical proof theory with a series of papers that culminated in the book “Introduction To Higher-Order Categorical Logic”, which is still the standard text on the subject. Phil’s research went well beyond these initial works: he made major contributions to theoretical computer science, linear logic, inverse semigroup theory and recursion theory.

 

Those of us who knew him personally will always think of him as a mentor, a friend and a genuinely kind soul.

 

Rick Blute

Robin Cockett

Simon Henry