Carl R. de Boor

Carl-Wilhelm Reinhold de Boor (born 3 December 1937) is an American mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.^[1]

Carl-Wilhelm Reinhold de Boor
Born	3 December 1937 (1937-12-03) (age 88) Stolp, Germany (present-day Słupsk, Poland)
Alma mater	University of Michigan (Ph.D.) Harvard University Hamburg University
Awards	John von Neumann Prize (1996) National Medal of Science (2003)
Scientific career
Fields	Mathematics (Numerical analysis)
Institutions	Purdue University University of Wisconsin–Madison University of Washington
Thesis	The Method Of Projections As Applied To The Numerical Solution Of Two Point Boundary Value Problems Using Cubic Splines (1966)

In 1993, de Boor was elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to numerical analysis and methods in particular numerical tools used in computer-aided design.^[2]

Early life

Born in Stolp, Germany (now, as part of Poland, called Słupsk), as the seventh of eight children born to Werner (an anti-Nazi Lutheran minister) and Toni de Boor in 1937, he fled in 1945 with his family, settling eventually in Schwerin, then part of East Germany.^[1] As a child, he was often ill, suffering from a variety of conditions. In 1955, young Carl took advantage of the temporary political thaw following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, obtained a one-month visa to West Germany and biked there, then decided to stay when he learned there that his application to Humboldt University (in East Berlin) for the study of chemistry had been turned down (because of his poor performance in mathematics).^[3] However, Otto Friedrich (a brother of Carl's father's first wife) was willing and able to help him. Two years later, he met and fell in love with Otto's niece, Matilda Friedrich, the daughter of Carl Friedrich, the political scientist and constitutional scholar.^[1] With the support of the Friedrich family, Carl emigrated to the United States in 1959, learning English on his trip across the Atlantic (he could read Beatrix Potter when he boarded the boat).^[3]

Education and career

de Boor discussing his life and career.

Having earned only a high school diploma after three and a half years of study at Hamburg University, de Boor entered Harvard University as a graduate student of mathematics.^[4] After working for a year as a research assistant to Garrett Birkhoff, he went to work for General Motors Research in Warren, Michigan, where he met splines.^[2] He received his first postgraduate degree, a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, in 1966, and then became an assistant professor at Purdue University. In 1972, he accepted a position as professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, working at the university's Army Math Research Center, which had recently been bombed in opposition to the Vietnam War.

Retirement and personal life

Carl de Boor retired from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2003 and relocated to Orcas Island in Washington state, with his second wife, author Helen Bee, who he married in 1991. In addition to his emeritus status at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, he is also an affiliated professor at the University of Washington.^[5]

Awards

In 1997 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, and he received the 2003 National Medal of Science in mathematics.^[6] Other honors have included election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1987^[7] and the National Academy of Engineering in 1993^[8], honorary degrees from Purdue University and Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), as well as membership in the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in Germany and the Polish Academy of Sciences.^[9] He won the John von Neumann Lecture Prize from the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics in 1996 and the John A. Gregory Award of Geometric Design in 2009.^[10]