The Nicholson Professorship was established in the 1960s as part of a package to attract Pierre Conner to LSU. It is the oldest of the named professorships housed in the Mathematics Department. LSU considers it as equivalent to a Boyd Professorship.
Nicholson Professors were:
- Pierre Conner (1968-1998)
- Jimmie Lawson (1999)
- Hui-Hsiung Kuo (2000-2014)
- Susanne C. Brenner (2015-2017)
- Robert Lipton (2018-)