 David Woolworth was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on June
14, 1961. He is an only child and his parents died in an automobile accident
when he was sixteen. At a young age, he showed a precocious ability to deal
with complex abstractions. In 1979, he
earned a scholarship to the University of Texas. After earning his
B.S. in Physics in just three years at the age of twenty, he
attended Harvard where he gained recognition for his work on
chaos theory. In 1987, he earned his PhD from Harvard and accepted
a faculty position at Cambridge University, England.
He remained in Cambridge until 1992 when, to the shock of
his peers and citing personal research, he took a much less dignified
position teaching mathematics at the University of Mississippi,
Oxford. After a disagreement with colleagues, Professor Woolworth
resigned his position at UM in May 1997, but was re-hired for
the fall semester in the same year.
While Professor Woolworth is very respected in the academic
community, he is regarded by his colleagues as something of a flake
because of his interest in alien cults. Reportedly, he was a consultant
to the TV show The X-Files, and writes under the pseudonym "Elvirus"
for the 'zine Anti-Matters. Professor Woolworth has published
several academic and non-academic works dealing with a variety
of subjects centered around aliens and world apocalypse. These
are: Ionic Compression at Infinite Gravity (Harvard 1989),
Non-logic and Paradox in Chaos Theory (Cambridge 1991),
The Center of the Edge of the Universe (Cambridge 1992),
The Intergalactic Convergence Zone (Yoknapatawpha, 1995), The End is Nearer
(Yoknapatawpha, 1997), and Y2K, You're
OK (Yoknapatawpha, 1999).
Over the years, Woolworth has both admitted and denied being the
leader of the
Ego Shovel cult. In late 1999, he released a
video statement that he and other
members of Ego Shovel were "going to a better place" to escape
persecution. After that video was made public, Woolworth was not seen
until the 2001 fall semester at Ole Miss, when he resumed teaching
classes. He has provided no information about his whereabouts or
activities during his leave of absence.
Professor Woolworth is single and is still a member of the faculty at
Ole Miss. He has never had a permanent residence, but is currently
living in Bruce, Mississippi with Billy Mummy.
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