Michael Alan Saunders is an American

numerical analyst Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods ...

and

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

. He is a research professor of Management Science and Engineering at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. Saunders is known for his contributions to

numerical linear algebra Numerical linear algebra, sometimes called applied linear algebra, is the study of how matrix operations can be used to create computer algorithms which efficiently and accurately provide approximate answers to questions in continuous mathematics. ...

and

numerical optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

and has developed many widely used software packages, such as

MINOS In Greek mythology, Minos (; grc-gre, Μίνως, ) was a King of Crete, son of Zeus and Europa. Every nine years, he made King Aegeus pick seven young boys and seven young girls to be sent to Daedalus's creation, the labyrinth, to be eaten ...

NPSOL NPSOL is a software package that performs numerical optimization. It solves nonlinear constrained problems using the sequential quadratic programming algorithm. It was written in Fortran by Philip Gill of UCSD and Walter Murray, Michael Saunders a ...

, and

SNOPT SNOPT, for Sparse Nonlinear OPTimizer, is a software package for solving large-scale nonlinear optimization problems written by Philip Gill, Walter Murray and Michael Saunders. SNOPT is mainly written in Fortran, but interfaces to C, C++, Pyth ...

. Saunders developed the

MINRES The Minimal Residual Method or MINRES is a Krylov subspace method for the iterative solution of symmetric linear equation systems. It was proposed by mathematicians Christopher Conway Paige and Michael Alan Saunders in 1975. In contrast to the ...

method for the iterative solution of symmetric linear equation systems in 1975 together with

Christopher Conway Paige Christopher is the English version of a Europe-wide name derived from the Greek name Χριστόφορος (''Christophoros'' or '' Christoforos''). The constituent parts are Χριστός (''Christós''), "Christ" or "Anointed", and φέρει� ...

Education and career

Saunders was born on in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. He received his B.Sc. in mathematics from

University of Canterbury The University of Canterbury ( mi, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha; postnominal abbreviation ''Cantuar.'' or ''Cant.'' for ''Cantuariensis'', the Latin name for Canterbury) is a public research university based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It was ...

in 1965 and worked for two years as a scientific officer at the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) in New Zealand. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1972, under the supervision of

Gene Golub Gene Howard Golub (February 29, 1932 – November 16, 2007), was an American numerical analyst who taught at Stanford University as Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science and held a courtesy appointment in electrical engineering. Person ...

. Saunders spent another two years at his old position with DSIR before joining the Systems Optimization Laboratory (SOL) in the Operations Research department at Stanford University. He was promoted to his current position in 1987 and made a faculty member in the Scientific Computing and Computational Mathematics (SCCM). He has authored over 100 scientific papers on a variety of topics, including many with his colleagues Philip Gill, Walter Murray, and Margaret Wright.

Honors and awards

Saunders is a highly cited researcher in both computer science and mathematics on the ISI Web of Knowledge, an Honorary Fellow of the

Royal Society of New Zealand Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a cit ...

, and a Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) fellow. He has won the Mathematical Programming Society (MPS) Beale-Orchard Hays Prize, and is a cowinner of the SIAM Linear Algebra Prize with Sou-Cheng Choi and Christopher Paige.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Saunders, Michael American computer scientists 1944 births Living people University of Canterbury alumni Stanford University alumni Stanford University faculty Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics New Zealand emigrants to the United States