Lloyd Nicholas Trefethen (born 30 August 1955) is an American mathematician, professor of

numerical analysis 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 th ...

and head of the Numerical Analysis Group at the

Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford The Mathematical Institute is the mathematics department at the University of Oxford in England. It is one of the nine departments of the university's Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division. The institute includes both pure and appl ...

Education

Trefethen was born 30 August 1955 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of mechanical engineer Lloyd M. Trefethen and codebreaker, poet, teacher and editor

Florence Newman Trefethen Florence Marion Newman Trefethen (1921–2012) was an American codebreaker, historian of operations research, poet, and English professor. Early life and education Florence Marion Newman was born in 1921, in Philadelphia. She graduated ''magna c ...

. He obtained his bachelor's degree from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

in 1977 and his master's from Stanford University in 1980. His PhD was on ''Wave Propagation and Stability for Finite Difference Schemes'' supervised by Joseph E. Oliger at Stanford University.

Career and research

Following his PhD, Trefethen went on to work at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

in New York,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to ...

, before being appointed to a chair at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

and a Fellowship of

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...

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

eigenvalue In linear algebra, an eigenvector () or characteristic vector of a linear transformation is a nonzero vector that changes at most by a scalar factor when that linear transformation is applied to it. The corresponding eigenvalue, often denot ...

problems and applications, spectral methods for differential equations,

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 ...

fluid mechanics Fluid mechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the mechanics of fluids (liquids, gases, and plasmas) and the forces on them. It has applications in a wide range of disciplines, including mechanical, aerospace, civil, chemical and ...

, computational

complex analysis Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of functions of a complex variable, is the branch of mathematical analysis that investigates functions of complex numbers. It is helpful in many branches of mathematics, including algebra ...

, and approximation theory. He is perhaps best known for his work on pseudospectra of non-normal matrices and operators. This work covers theoretical aspects as well as numerical algorithms, and applications including fluid mechanics, numerical solution of partial differential equations, numerical linear algebra, shuffling of cards, random matrices, differential equations and

lasers A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The word "laser" is an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The firs ...

. Trefethen is currently an

ISI highly cited researcher The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analys ...

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

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementa ...

-based Chebfun software project. In 2013 he proposed a new formula to calculate the BMI of a person: :

\text = 1.3 \times \frac

( 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

Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis The Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) is a biennial prize established in 1985 by the IMA in honour of mathematician Leslie Fox (1918-1992). The prize honours "young numerical analysts ...

. In 1998 he was an Invited Speaker of the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

in Berlin. He is a fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings ...

, and a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

in the United States. Trefethen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2005, and his certificate of election reads: 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". In 2013 Trefethen was awarded the Naylor Prize and lectureship in Applied Mathematics from the

London Mathematical Society The London Mathematical Society (LMS) is one of the United Kingdom's learned societies for mathematics (the others being the Royal Statistical Society (RSS), the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), the Edinburgh Mathematical S ...

. 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). He is currently married to Kate McLoughlin, a professor of English Literature at Oxford.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trefethen, Lloyd Nicholas Fellows of the Royal Society Numerical analysts 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Living people Harvard University alumni Stanford University alumni 1955 births Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Presidents of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty

Nick Nick may refer to: * Nick (given name) * A cricket term for a slight deviation of the ball off the edge of the bat * British slang for being arrested * British slang for a police station * British slang for stealing * Short for nickname Place ...