Professor Roger Fletcher, head of the mathematics department at the University of Dundee has just been elected to the highly prestigious Royal Society for his mastery of maths including formulas which helped put the earliest spacecraft in the 1960s into orbit.
Roger Fletcher, Baxter Professor of Mathematics and Professor of Optimization has been distinguished for his highly original research in nonlinear optimisation and numerical algorithms. He pioneered the variable metric and conjugate gradient methods for problems without constraints.
Professor Fletcher's groundbreaking research in mathematics has contributed to many areas including a solution for least risk, maximum return in portfolio selection stocks and shares buying. He has also worked out solutions for engineers to achieve minimum cost, maximum strength in the design of bridges and buildings and has helped consumers by calculating how power companies can distribute power to the consumer with the minimum loss of energy.
Sir Alan Langlands, Principal of the University of Dundee said: "I congratulate Roger Fletcher on his highly prestigious honour. It is another accolade in a long list for researchers at the University of Dundee who are industriously engaged in advancing their field."
International recognition of his outstanding record occurred in the award of the prestigious Dantzig Prize for Optimization from the mathematical Programming Society and the US Society for industrial and Applied Mathematics in 1997. The numerous computer programmes, based on his work, which are in widespread use today are yet another testimony to the enormous significance and invaluable nature of the research.
Contact Professor Roger Fletcher 01382 344490
By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910 j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk