Biography:Gilbert Strang

Short description: American mathematician

W. Gilbert Strang
Born	(1934-11-27) November 27, 1934 Chicago, Illinois
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	MIT Balliol College, Oxford UCLA
Awards	Chauvenet Prize (1977)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics
Institutions	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Thesis	Difference Methods for Mixed Boundary Value Problems (1959)
Doctoral advisor	Peter K. Henrici
Doctoral students	Hermann Flaschka Pavel Grinfeld Alan Berger

William Gilbert Strang (born November 27, 1934), usually known as simply Gilbert Strang or Gil Strang, is an American mathematician, with contributions to finite element theory, the calculus of variations, wavelet analysis and linear algebra. He has made many contributions to mathematics education, including publishing seven mathematics textbooks and one monograph. Strang is the MathWorks Professor of Mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He teaches Introduction to Linear Algebra, Computational Science and Engineering, and Matrix Methods and his lectures are freely available through MIT OpenCourseWare.

Education

Strang completed his undergraduate degree (S.B.) in 1955 from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was the recipient of Rhodes Scholarship for his Masters degree from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1957.

His Ph. D. was from University of California, Los Angeles, as a National Science Foundation Fellow in 1959, under the supervision of Peter K. Henrici. His dissertation was titled "Difference Methods for Mixed Boundary Value Problems".

University Positions

Strang has been serving as a Professor of Mathematics at MIT from 1962.

He has received Honorary Titles and Fellowships from the following institutes:

• Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1966–1967)
• Honorary Professor, Xian Jiaotong University, China (1980)
• Honorary Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford University (1999)
• Honorary Member, Irish Mathematical Society (2002)
• Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009)
• Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Toulouse (2010)
• Fellow of the American Mathematical Society (2012)
• Doctor Honoris Causa, Aalborg University (2013)

Awards

• Rhodes Scholar (1955)
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (1957)
• Chauvenet Prize, Mathematical Association of America (1976)
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985)
• Award for Distinguished Service to the Profession, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2003)
• Lester R. Ford Award (2005)
• Von Neumann Medal, US Association for Computational Mechanics (2005)
• Haimo Prize, Mathematical Association of America (2007)
• Su Buchin Prize, International Congress (ICIAM, 2007)
• Henrici Prize (2007)
• National Academy of Sciences (2009)
• Irwin Sizer Award for the Most Significant Improvement to MIT Education (2020)

Service

• President, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (1999, 2000)
• Chair, U.S. National Committee on Mathematics (2003–2004)
• Chair, National Science Foundation (NSF) Advisory Panel on Mathematics
• Board Member, International Council for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM)
• Abel Prize Committee (2003–2005)

Publications

Books and monographs

1. Linear Algebra for Everyone (2020)
2. Linear Algebra and Learning from Data (2019)
3. Calculus (2017)
4. Introduction to Linear Algebra (2016)
5. Differential Equations and Linear Algebra (2014) http://math.mit.edu/dela/
6. Essays in Linear Algebra (2012)
7. Algorithms for Global Positioning, with Kai Borre (2012)
8. An Analysis of the Finite Element Method, with George Fix (2008)
9. Computational Science and Engineering (2007)
10. Linear Algebra and Its Applications (2005)
11. Linear Algebra, Geodesy, and GPS, with Kai Borre (1997)
12. Wavelets and Filter Banks, with Truong Nguyen (1996)
13. Strang, Gilbert (1986). Introduction to Applied Mathematics. Wellesley, MA: Wellesley-Cambridge Press. pp. xii+758. 

See also

• The Joint spectral radius, introduced by Strang in the early 60s.
• The Strang–Fix condition for accuracy of approximation.
• Strang splitting

External links

• Official website
• Gilbert Strang at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Wellesley Cambridge Press (USA) www.wellesleycambridge.com/
• Wellesley Publishers (India) www.wellesleypublishers.com/