John R. Rice

John Rischard Rice (June 6, 1934 – January 7, 2024) was an American mathematician and computer scientist. He was the W. Brooks Fortune Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and a professor of mathematics (by courtesy) at Purdue University. He specialized in numerical computing, founded the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software and was the author of more than 20 books and approximately 300 research articles.

Biography Rice was born on June 6, 1934, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and grew up in small towns in Oklahoma. After taking a one-year postdoctoral position at the National Bureau of Standards, he became a researcher for General Motors. This led to the founding of ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS) in 1975, of which Rice would be editor-in-chief until 1993.

Rice died at home on January 7, 2024, at the age of 89.

Research Rice showed an early interest in computing, publishing a paper titled "Electronic Brains" as a college sophomore.

Rice's other books include: Solving Elliptic Problems with ELLPACK (Springer-Verlag, 1985) Mathematical Aspects of Scientific Software (Springer-Verlag, 1988) Expert Systems for Scientific Computing (North Holland, 1992) Enabling Technologies for Computational Science (Kluwer, 2000)

Awards and honors Rice was named the Brooks Fortune Professor in 1989. In 1994, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for his "for leadership in founding the field of mathematical software and for fundamental contributions to its content". He is also a Fellow of the AAAS and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.