Nick Trefethen

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Nick Trefethen

Born
Lloyd Nicholas Trefethen

(1955-08-30) 30 August 1955 (age 68)[3][4]
Alma mater
Known for
Embree–Trefethen constant[5]
Spouses
Anne Trefethen (née Daman)
(m. 1988⁠–⁠2008)
Kate McLoughlin
(m. 2011)
Childrenone son, one daughter[3]
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsNumerical analysis
Institutions
ThesisWave Propagation and Stability for Finite Difference Schemes (1982)
Doctoral advisorJoseph E. Oliger[2]
Doctoral studentsAlan Edelman
Websitepeople.maths.ox.ac.uk/trefethen

Lloyd Nicholas Trefethen FRS[1] (born 30 August 1955) is an American mathematician, professor of numerical analysis and head of the Numerical Analysis Group at the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford.[6][7][8][9]

Early life and education

Trefethen was born 30 August 1955 in

Boston, Massachusetts,[10] the son of mechanical engineer Lloyd M. Trefethen and codebreaker, poet, teacher and editor Florence Newman Trefethen.[3] Trefethen attended Phillips Exeter Academy
.

He obtained his bachelor's degree from

Career and research

Following his PhD, Trefethen went on to work at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences in New York, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Cornell University, before being appointed to a chair at the University of Oxford and a Fellowship of Balliol College, Oxford.[13]

As of 2020, he has published around 150 journal papers spanning a wide range of areas within numerical analysis and applied mathematics, including non-normal

ISI highly cited researcher.[15]

Trefethen has written a number of books on numerical analysis including Numerical Linear Algebra[16] with David Bau, Spectral Methods in MATLAB, Schwarz–Christoffel Mapping with Tobin Driscoll, and Spectra and Pseudospectra: The Behavior of Nonnormal Matrices and Operators[17] with Mark Embree.[5] He is the leader of the MATLAB-based Chebfun software project.

In 2013 he proposed a new formula to calculate the BMI of a person:[18][19]

(International System of Units)

Books

  • Numerical Linear Algebra (SIAM, 1997) with David Bau
  • Spectral Methods in Matlab (SIAM, 2000)
  • Schwarz-Christoffel Mapping (Cambridge, 2002) with T. A. Driscoll
  • Spectra and Pseudospectra: The Behavior of Nonnormal Matrices and Operators (Princeton, 2005) with Mark Embree
  • Trefethen's Index Cards (World Scientific 2011)
  • Approximation Theory and Approximation Practice (SIAM, 2013 and 2020)
  • Exploring ODEs (SIAM, 2018) with Á. Birkisson and T. A. Driscoll
  • An Applied Mathematician’s Apology (SIAM, 2022)

Awards and honours

Trefethen was the first winner of the

Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2005,[1]
and his certificate of election reads:

Nick Trefethen is distinguished for his many seminal contributions to Numerical Analysis and its applications in Applied Mathematics and in Engineering Science. His research spans theory, algorithms, software and physical applications, particularly involving eigenvalues, pseudospectra – a concept which he introduced – and dynamics. He has an international reputation for his work on nonnormal matrices and operators. He has also made major contributions to finite difference and spectral methods for partial differential equations, numerical linear algebra, and complex analysis. His monograph Numerical Linear Algebra (SIAM, 1997) is one of the SIAM's best selling books and has already been through five printings.[1]

In 2010 Trefethen was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in recognition of his "outstanding contributions to mathematics and its applications over a period of years".[22] In 2013 Trefethen was awarded the

Naylor Prize and lectureship in Applied Mathematics from the London Mathematical Society.[23]
He was awarded the George Pólya Prize for Mathematical Exposition in 2017 and the John von Neumann Prize in 2020 by SIAM.

Personal life

Trefethen has one son and one daughter from his first marriage to Anne Elizabeth Trefethen (née Daman).[3] He is currently married to Kate McLoughlin, a professor of English Literature at Oxford.

References

  1. ^ a b c d "Certificate of candidature and election: Trefethen, Lloyd Nicholas, EC/2005/40". London: The Royal Society. Archived from the original on 22 January 2014.
  2. ^ a b Nick Trefethen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. ^ a b c d "TREFETHEN, Prof. Lloyd Nicholas, (Nick)". Who's Who. Vol. 2015 (online Oxford University Press ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  4. ^ "New directions in Numerical Computation, 25–28 August 2015: In Celebration of Nick Trefethen's 60th birthday". University of Oxford. Archived from the original on 4 April 2015.
  5. ^
    S2CID 16404862
    .
  6. ^ Nick Trefethen's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  7. ^ Nick Trefethen publications indexed by Google Scholar
  8. ^ Lloyd N. Trefethen at DBLP Bibliography Server Edit this at Wikidata
  9. .
  10. OCLC 13680380.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )
  11. .
  12. ^ Nick Trefethen author profile page at the ACM Digital Library
  13. ^ "SNC '07 Invited Speakers". Retrieved 26 April 2008.
  14. ^ "Nick Trefethen publication list".
  15. ^ "T – Research Analytics – Thomson Reuters". Highlycited.com. 15 September 2011. Retrieved 12 February 2013.
  16. .
  17. .
  18. ^ "New BMI (New Body Mass Index)".
  19. ^ Stephenson, Wesley (29 January 2013). "Does the BMI need correcting?". BBC News.
  20. ^ Trefethen, Lloyd N.; Driscoll, Tobin A. (1998). "Schwarz-Christoffel mapping in the computer era". Doc. Math. (Bielefeld) Extra Vol. ICM Berlin, 1998, vol. III. pp. 533–542.
  21. ^ List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society. Retrieved 27 August 2013.
  22. ^ "IMA Gold Medal". Retrieved 16 May 2018. Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
  23. ^ "List of LMS prize winners". London Mathematical Society. Retrieved 25 November 2014.

External links