Alan B. Tayler
Alan Breach Tayler was a British applied mathematician and pioneer of "industrial mathematics". He was a Founding Fellow of St Catherine's College, Oxford, the initiator of the Oxford Study Groups with Industry in 1968, a driving force behind the foundation of the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry in 1985 and President of ECMI, and the first Director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics .
Education
Tayler was privately educated at King's College School in Wimbledon, London and the University of Oxford where he was a student at Brasenose College, Oxford in 1951. After he was awarded a first class undergraduate degree in Mathematics he worked for a brief period in industry, before returning to academia to complete his Doctor of Philosophy degree supervised by George Temple in 1959.Career and research
Tayler was a distinguished applied mathematician who made important contributions in a wide range of areas, but his key contribution to science was as the driving force behind the establishment of what is often called "mathematics-in-industry" or "industrial mathematics" as a recognized scientific discipline in its own right. His philosophy is perfectly exemplified by the Oxford Study Groups with Industry which he and Professor Leslie Fox created in 1968 and are still going strong today. His approach to mathematical modelling is described in his monograph "Mathematical Models in Applied Mechanics", and is commemorated by the annual Alan Tayler Lecture held at the St Catherine's College, Oxford in November each year. During his career he supervised research of several notable applied mathematicians, including John Ockendon and John King.In 1959 Alan Tayler became a University Lecturer and Tutorial Fellow at St Catherine's Society, Oxford, and was involved in its transformation into St Catherine's College, Oxford in 1962, where remained for the rest of his career. He was devoted to the College, and held several of its major offices, and also to the Oxford University Rugby Football Club, of which he was President from 1990 to 1995.