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Nicholas Higham

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For the BBC News correspondent, see Nick Higham. For the medieval historian, see N. J. Higham.

Nick Higham
Born
Nicholas John Higham

(1961-12-25)25 December 1961
Salford, England
Died20 January 2024(2024-01-20) (aged 62)
NationalityBritish
CitizenshipUnited Kingdom
Alma materUniversity of Manchester
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsUniversity of Manchester
Cornell University[2]
ThesisNearness Problems in Numerical Linear Algebra (1985)
Doctoral advisorGeorge Hall[3]
Doctoral studentsKim Hyun-Min
Websitenhigham.com

Nicholas John Higham FRS (25 December 1961 – 20 January 2024) was a British numerical analyst.[2] He was Royal Society Research Professor and Richardson Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Manchester.[4][1][3][5][6]

Early life and career

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Nicholas John Higham was born in Salford on 25 December 1961.[7] He was educated at Eccles Grammar School, Eccles College, and the University of Manchester, from which he gained his B.Sc. in mathematics (1982), M.Sc. in Numerical Analysis and Computing (1983), and PhD in Numerical Analysis (1985).[2][8] His PhD thesis was supervised by George Hall.[3] He was appointed lecturer in mathematics at the University of Manchester in 1985, where he has been Richardson Professor of Applied Mathematics since 1998.[4]

In 1988–1989 he was Visiting Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York.[9]

Research

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Higham is best known for his work on the accuracy and stability of numerical algorithms.[10] He has more than 140 refereed publications[1][5] on topics such as rounding error analysis, linear systems, least squares problems, matrix functions and nonlinear matrix equations, matrix nearness problems, condition number estimation, and generalized eigenvalue problems. He has contributed software to LAPACK and the NAG library, and has contributed code included in the MATLAB distribution.

Higham's books include Functions of Matrices: Theory and Computation, (2008),[11]Accuracy and Stability of Numerical Algorithms,[10] Handbook of Writing for the Mathematical Sciences,[12] and MATLAB Guide, co-authored with his brother Desmond Higham.[13] He was Editor of the Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics[14] and a contributor to the Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics.[15] His books have been translated into Chinese, Japanese and Korean.[16][17][18]

Professional service

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Higham served as president of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) 2017–2018.[19]

Death

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Higham died on 20 January 2024, at the age of 62.[20]

Awards and honours

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Higham's honours include the Alston S. Householder Award VI, 1987 (for the best PhD thesis in numerical algebra 1984–1987), the 1988 Leslie Fox Prize for Numerical Analysis, a 1999 Junior Whitehead Prize from the London Mathematical Society, a 2020 IMA Gold Medal,[21] the 2019 Naylor Prize and Lectureship by the London Mathematical Society, the 2021 George Pólya Prize for Mathematical Exposition by the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the 2022 Hans Schneider Prize in Linear Algebra. Higham held a prestigious Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (2003–2008). He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2007[22] and as a ACM Fellow in 2020.[23] In 2008 he was awarded the Fröhlich Prize in recognition of 'his leading contributions to numerical linear algebra and numerical stability analysis'.[24] He was elected a Member of Academia Europaea in 2016.[25] In 2022 he became Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.[26]

Higham was a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications, a Fellow of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. He was also a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.[27]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Nicholas Higham publications indexed by Google Scholar
  2. ^ a b c "HIGHAM, Prof. Nicholas John', Who's Who 2013, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2013; online edn, Oxford University Press".
  3. ^ a b c Nicholas Higham at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  4. ^ a b "Nick Higham - School of Mathematics, University of Manchester". www.maths.manchester.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 8 January 2021.
  5. ^ a b Nicholas Higham's publications indexed by the Scopus bibliographic database. (subscription required)
  6. ^ "Leading scientists awarded Royal Society Research Professorships". royalsociety.org. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  7. ^ "HIGHAM, Prof. Nicholas John". Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press.(subscription required)
  8. ^ Higham, Nicholas (1985). Nearness Problems in Numerical Linear Algebra (PhD thesis). University of Manchester.
  9. ^ "Prof Nicholas Higham FRS | The University of Manchester". www.research.manchester.ac.uk. Retrieved 17 October 2018.
  10. ^ a b Higham, Nicholas J. (2002). Accuracy and Stability of Numerical Algorithms. Second Edition, Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. ISBN 978-0-89871-521-7.
  11. ^ Higham, Nicholas J. (2008). Functions of Matrices: Theory and Computation. Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. ISBN 978-0-89871-646-7.
  12. ^ Higham, Nicholas J. (2020). Handbook of writing for the mathematical sciences (Third ed.). Philadelphia. ISBN 978-1-61197-610-6. OCLC 1131865845.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ^ Higham, Desmond J.; Nicholas J. Higham (2017). MATLAB guide (Third ed.). Philadelphia. ISBN 978-1-61197-465-2. OCLC 957339736.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  14. ^ Higham, Nicholas J.; Dennis, Mark R.; Glendinning, Paul; Martin, Paul A.; Santosa, Fadil; Tanner, Jared (2015). The Princeton Companion to Applied Mathematics. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691150390.
  15. ^ Nelson, David (2 October 2008). Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics. Penguin Adult. ISBN 9780141030234.
  16. ^ Higham, N.J. (1994). Sūri kagaku ronbun handobukku. Translated by Okumura, Shōji; Hasegawa, Takemitsu. 日本評論社. ISBN 978-4535782112. OCLC 674217300.
  17. ^ Higham, Nick (2016). Shu xue lun wen xie zuo. Jia, Zhigang, Chang, Liang, Li, Jianbo, 贾志刚, 常亮, 李建波 (Di 1 ban ed.). Beijing: Ke xue chu ban she. ISBN 9787030513472. OCLC 1050517123.
  18. ^ 아진, 도서출판. "대학교재 전문 출판사(도서출판 아진)". ajin.to. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
  19. ^ "Remembering Nick Higham 1961–2024". SIAM News. 1 May 2024.
  20. ^ Desmond J. Higham; Françoise Tisseur (1 May 2024). "Obituary: Nicholas J. Higham". SIAM.
  21. ^ "IMA Gold Medal 2020 awarded to Professor Nick Higham". IMA. 10 December 2020. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  22. ^ New Fellows and Foreign Members 2007 www.royalsoc.ac.uk
  23. ^ "2020 ACM Fellows Recognized for Work that Underpins Today's Computing Innovations". www.acm.org. Retrieved 15 March 2021.
  24. ^ "London Mathematical Society Prizes 2008" (PDF). London Mathematical Society. 4 July 2008. Retrieved 18 May 2024.
  25. ^ "Academy of Europe: Higham Nicholas". www.ae-info.org. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  26. ^ "Professor Nicholas Higham FREng FRS". raeng.org.uk. Retrieved 8 December 2022.
  27. ^ "Nick Higham". The Alan Turing Institute. Retrieved 12 October 2018.
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