Hilary Ockendon is a British mathematician who worked at the University of Oxford until retirement in 2008. Her research focuses on applications of mathematics with a particular interest in continuum models for industrial problems. She is an emeritus fellow of

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

, the former president of the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry, and the author of multiple books on fluid dynamics. She is an expert on problems in

fluid dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids— liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including ''aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) an ...

, such as the reduction of

sloshing In fluid dynamics, slosh refers to the movement of liquid inside another object (which is, typically, also undergoing motion). Strictly speaking, the liquid must have a free surface to constitute a slosh dynamics problem, where the dynamics of t ...

in coffee cups.

Education and career

Born in Derby in 1941 Ockendon attended Derby High School for Girls from 1946 to 1959. In 1959 she went up to read mathematics at

St Hilda's College, Oxford St Hilda's College is one of the Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college is named after the Anglo-Saxon Saint, Hilda of Whitby and was founded in 1893 as a hall for women; it ...

. After graduating her first job was at

GCHQ Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ, is an intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance (IA) to the government and armed forces of the Unit ...

but after 2 years she obtained a research/teaching post at

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, Ir ...

and returned to Oxford. She completed her DPhil in 1968, and her dissertation, Relaxing Gas Flow, was supervised by David Spence.. She was then appointed to a permanent position as a Tutorial Fellow at Somerville and a lecturer at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, she held these positions until her retirement in 2008. Between 1988 and 1990 she was the Vice-Principal of Somerville: . Between 1994 and 2002 Ockendon was the director of the Oxford Centre for Industrial and Applied Mathematics at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, where she is now an emerita member. She has been an Emeritus Fellow of

since 2008. She was president of the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry from 2001 to 2003.

Research

She embarked on research in fluid mechanics but soon became involved in the Study Groups with Industry that were launched in Oxford in 1968 and since then much of her work has been driven by industrial problems. The industrial problems she has worked on have come from a wide range of application areas but have mainly focussed on continuum models in fluids and solids. A particular area of interest has been the problems from the textile industry. She has also had a longstanding interest in nonlinear wave theory – both in fluids and solids. She was co-author of two textbooks on Fluid Mechanics both of which came out of lecture courses developed at Oxford.

Books

Ockendon is the author of: *''Inviscid Fluid Flows'' (with Alan B. Taylor, Oxford University, 1972; Springer, 1983) *''Viscous Flow'' (with

John Ockendon Professor John Richard Ockendon FRS (born c. 1940) is an applied mathematician noted especially for his contribution to fluid dynamics and novel applications of mathematics to real world problems. He is a professor at the University of Oxford a ...

, Cambridge University Press, 1995) *''Waves and Compressible Flow'' (with

, Springer, 2004; 2nd ed., 2015)

Knowledge transfer

She has had a particular interest in promoting Industrial Mathematics in Europe via the European Consortium for Mathematics in Industry : Council member (1998-2005), President (2001-2003), executive director (2012–15).

Recognition

Honorary DSc, Southampton University, 1999.
Honorary member of ECMI since 2018.

Personal life

Much of her research has been done in collaboration with her husband Professor

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ockendon, Hilary 1941 births 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians Alumni of St Hilda's College, Oxford Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford British women mathematicians Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford Living people