 In 1916, after just two years working under department chair Frank Morley's new PhD student Harry Bateman, he was awarded the Ph.D.He then lectured at Rice University, and returned to Johns Hopkins in the rank of Associate Professor at the young age of 25.In 1928 he was promoted to Professor and became only the fourth head of the Department of Mathematics (after J.J. Sylvester, Simon Newcomb and Frank Morley).