Cleve Barry Moler is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

and

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

specializing in

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

. In the mid to late 1970s, he was one of the authors of LINPACK and

EISPACK EISPACK is a software library for numerical computation of eigenvalues and eigenvectors of matrices, written in FORTRAN. It contains subroutines for calculating the eigenvalues of nine classes of matrices: complex general, complex Hermitian, ...

, Fortran libraries for numerical computing. He invented

MATLAB MATLAB (an abbreviation of "MATrix LABoratory") is a proprietary multi-paradigm programming language and numeric computing environment developed by MathWorks. MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation ...

, a numerical computing package, to give his students at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

easy access to these libraries without writing Fortran. In 1984, he co-founded

MathWorks MathWorks is an American privately held corporation that specializes in mathematical computing software. Its major products include MATLAB and Simulink, which support data analysis and simulation. History The company's key product, MATLAB, was ...

with Jack Little to commercialize this program.

Biography

He received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

from

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

in 1961, and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in 1965 from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, both in mathematics. He worked for Charles Lawson at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

in 1961 and 1962. He was a professor of mathematics and computer science for almost 20 years at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, and the

. Before joining

full-time in 1989, he also worked for

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Hypercube, where he coined the term "

embarrassingly parallel In parallel computing, an embarrassingly parallel workload or problem (also called embarrassingly parallelizable, perfectly parallel, delightfully parallel or pleasingly parallel) is one where little or no effort is needed to separate the problem ...

", and

Ardent Computer Corporation Stardent Computer, Inc. was a manufacturer of graphics supercomputer workstations in the late 1980s. The company was formed in 1989 when Ardent Computer Corporation (formerly Dana Computer, Inc.) and Stellar Computer Inc. merged. History Stellar ...

. He is also co-author of four textbooks on numerical methods and is a member of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

. He was president of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

2007–2008. He was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

on February 14, 1997, for conceiving and developing widely used mathematical software. He received an honorary degree from

Linköping University Linköping University (, LiU) is a public research university based in Linköping, Sweden. Originally established in 1969, it was granted full university status in 1975 and is one of Sweden's largest academic institutions. The university has fou ...

, Sweden. He received an honorary degree of Doctor of Mathematics from the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

on June 16, 2001. On April 30, 2004, he was appointed Honorary Doctor (doctor technices, honoris causa) at the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fi ...

. In 2009, he was recognized by Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics as a SIAM Fellow for his outstanding contributions to numerical analysis and software, including the invention of MATLAB. In April 2012, the

IEEE Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

named Cleve the recipient of the 2012 Computer Pioneer Award. In February 2014, IEEE named Cleve the recipient of the 2014

IEEE John von Neumann Medal The IEEE John von Neumann Medal was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1990 and may be presented annually "for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology." The achievements may be theoretical, technological, or ...

.Recipients of the 2014 Medals and Awards
, IEEE Computer Press Release, February 14, 2014 In April 2017, he was made Fellow of the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

Publications

*Forsythe, George E., Malcolm, Michael A., Moler, Cleve B., "Computer methods for mathematical computations", Prentice-Hall Series in Automatic Computation,

Prentice-Hall Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...

., Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1977. *Moler, Cleve B.
"Numerical Computing with MATLAB"

, 2004,

References

External links

MathWorks biography of Moler

Lengthy interview transcript covering Moler's entire career. Full text available online. * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Moler, Cleve B. 1939 births 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Computer programmers University of Michigan faculty Stanford University Department of Mathematics faculty University of New Mexico faculty California Institute of Technology alumni Stanford University School of Humanities and Sciences alumni Living people Numerical analysts Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Presidents of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics