Carl R. de Boor
Carl-Wilhelm Reinhold de Boor is an American mathematician and professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. In 1993, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering for contributions to numerical analysis and methods in particular numerical tools used in computer-aided design.
Early life
He was born in Stolp, Germany, in 1937, as the seventh of eight children born to Werner and Toni de Boor. The family fled in 1945, settling eventually in Schwerin, then part of East Germany. As a child, de Boor was often ill, suffering from various conditions. In 1955, during the temporary political thaw following Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, he was able to obtain a one-month visa to West Germany, travelling there by bicycle. He decided to stay in West Germany when his application to study chemistry at Humboldt University in East Berlin was turned down, due to his poor results in mathematics. He was supported by Otto Friedrich, the brother of Carl's father's first wife. Two years later, he began a romantic relationship with Otto's niece, Matilda Friedrich, the daughter of political scientist Carl Friedrich. With the support of the Friedrich family, Carl emigrated to the United States in 1959, learning English on his trip across the Atlantic.
Education 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. 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 came across splines. 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, shortly after it had been bombed in opposition to the Vietnam War.
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.
Awards
De Boor was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1997, and received the 2003 National Medal of Science in mathematics. Other honors have included election to the American [Academy of Arts and Sciences] in 1987 and the National Academy of Engineering in 1993, honorary degrees from Purdue University and Technion, as well as membership in the German [Academy of Sciences Leopoldina] in Germany and the Polish Academy of Sciences. 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.