James Dickson Murray FRSE FRS, (born 2 January 1931) is professor emeritus of

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

and

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

. He is best known for his authoritative and extensive work entitled '' Mathematical Biology''.

Early life

Murray was born in

Moffat Moffat ( gd, Mofad) is a burgh and parish in Dumfriesshire, now part of the Dumfries and Galloway local authority area in Scotland. It lies on the River Annan, with a population of around 2,500. It was a centre of the wool trade and a spa town. ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, and was educated at St. Andrews University, where he received with honours a bachelor's degree in mathematics in 1953, he took his PhD there in 1956.

Research and career

His first post was at the

University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...

, UK; later he has held positions at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

, London and Oxford, becoming professor of mechanical engineering 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 ...

in 1965, at the age of 34. He later became professor of mathematical biology 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 ...

, a fellow and tutor in mathematics at

Corpus Christi College, Oxford Corpus Christi College (formally, Corpus Christi College in the University of Oxford; informally abbreviated as Corpus or CCC) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1517, it is the 12t ...

and founder and director of the Centre for Mathematical Biology. He left Oxford in the late 1980s for the

in Seattle, where he spent the rest of his career as professor of mathematics and adjunct professor of zoology. His research is characterised by its great range and depth: an early example is his fundamental contributions to understanding the

biomechanics Biomechanics is the study of the structure, function and motion of the mechanical aspects of biological systems, at any level from whole organisms to organs, cells and cell organelles, using the methods of mechanics. Biomechanics is a branch of ...

of the human body when launched from an aircraft in an

ejection seat In aircraft, an ejection seat or ejector seat is a system designed to rescue the pilot or other crew of an aircraft (usually military) in an emergency. In most designs, the seat is propelled out of the aircraft by an explosive charge or rock ...

. He has made contributions to many other areas, ranging from understanding and preventing severe scarring; fingerprint formation; sex determination, modelling of animal coat and territory formation in wolf-deer interacting populations.

Awards and honours

Murray was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1979 and a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1985. In 2008 Murray and Professor T. J. Pedley, FRS were jointly awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in recognition of their "outstanding contributions to mathematics and its applications over a period of years". Institute of Mathematics and its Applications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Murray, James Dickson 20th-century Scottish mathematicians 21st-century Scottish mathematicians Theoretical biologists Alumni of the University of St Andrews Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Academics of Durham University Harvard University faculty University of Michigan faculty Members of the French Academy of Sciences Fellows of the Royal Society University of Washington faculty Living people 1931 births