Steven Alan Orszag (February 27, 1943 – May 1, 2011) was an American mathematician.

Life and career

Orszag was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, the son of Joseph Orszag, a lawyer.University of St Andrews, Scotland - School of Mathematics and Statistics: "Steven Alan Orszag" by J.J. O'Connor and E.F. Robertson
October 2011 Orszag's paternal grandparents were emigrants from

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

. Orszag was raised in Forest Hills, Queens and graduated from Forest Hills High School. In 1962, at the age of 19, he graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

where he was a member of the

Pi Lambda Phi Pi Lambda Phi (), commonly known as Pi Lam, is a social fraternity with 145 chapters (44 active chapters/colonies). The fraternity was founded in 1895 at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Pi Lambda Phi is headlined by prestigious chapte ...

fraternity. He did post graduate study at

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and in 1966 graduated with a Ph.D. in

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. His thesis adviser was

Martin David Kruskal Martin David Kruskal (; September 28, 1925 – December 26, 2006) was an American mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, ranging from plasma physics to general relativity and ...

. In 1967, Orszag was appointed as a professor of applied mathematics at the

where he collaborated with

Carl M. Bender Carl M. Bender (born 1943) is an American Applied mathematics, applied mathematician and Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist. He currently holds the Wilfred R. and Ann Lee Konneker Distinguished Professorship of Physics at Washington Uni ...

and was a Member of the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...

.Institute for Advanced Study profile
/ref> In 1984, he was appointed Forrest E Hamrick Professor of Engineering at

. In 1988, he accepted a position at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and in 2000, he was named the Percey F. Smith Professor of Mathematics at

from 2000 until his death in 2011. Orszag has won numerous awards including

Sloan Fellowship The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States. ...

and

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, the

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is a professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA is the U.S. representative on the International Astronautical Federation and the International Council of ...

Fluid and Plasmadynamics Award, the

Otto Laporte Award The Otto Laporte Award (1972–2003) was an annual award by the American Physical Society (APS) to "recognize outstanding contributions to fluid dynamics" and to honour Otto Laporte (1902–1971). It was established as the Otto Laporte Memorial ...

of the American Physical Society, and the Society of Engineering Science's G. I. Taylor Medal. Orszag specialized 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 ...

, especially turbulence,

computational physics Computational physics is the study and implementation of numerical analysis to solve problems in physics for which a quantitative theory already exists. Historically, computational physics was the first application of modern computers in science, ...

and mathematics, electronic chip manufacturing, computer storage system design, and other topics in

scientific computing Computational science, also known as scientific computing or scientific computation (SC), is a field in mathematics that uses advanced computing capabilities to understand and solve complex problems. It is an area of science that spans many disc ...

. His work included the development of

spectral methods Spectral methods are a class of techniques used in applied mathematics and scientific computing to numerically solve certain differential equations. The idea is to write the solution of the differential equation as a sum of certain " basis functio ...

pseudo-spectral method Pseudo-spectral methods, also known as discrete variable representation (DVR) methods, are a class of numerical methods used in applied mathematics and scientific computing for the solution of partial differential equations. They are closely rel ...

direct numerical simulation A direct numerical simulation (DNS)Here the origin of the term ''direct numerical simulation'' (see e.g. p. 385 in ) owes to the fact that, at that time, there were considered to be just two principal ways of getting ''theoretical'' results r ...

s, renormalization group methods for turbulence, and very- large-eddy simulations. He was the founder of and/or chief scientific adviser to a number of companies, including Flow Research, Ibrix (now part of HPQ), Vector Technologies, and Exa Corp. He has been awarded 6 patents and has written over 400 archival papers. With

he wrot
''Advanced Mathematical Methods for Scientists and Engineers: Asymptotic Methods and Perturbation Theory''
a standard text on mathematical methods for scientists. Orszag has been listed as an ISI Highly Cited Author in Engineering by the ISI Web of Knowledge, Thomson Scientific Company.

Personal life

In 1964, he married Reba Karp (sister of

Joel Karp Joel or Yoel is a name meaning "Yahweh Is God" and may refer to: * Joel (given name), origin of the name including a list of people with the first name. * Joel (surname), a surname * Joel (footballer, born 1904), Joel de Oliveira Monteiro, Brazili ...

, the co-designer of the

Intel 1103 The 1103 is a dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) integrated circuit (IC) developed and fabricated by Intel. Introduced in October 1970, the 1103 was the first commercially available DRAM IC; and due to its small physical size and low price rel ...

chip); they had three sons: Michael,

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

, and Jonathan. Peter and Jonathan were both

Marshall Scholars The Marshall Scholarship is a postgraduate scholarship for "intellectually distinguished young Americans ndtheir country's future leaders" to study at any university in the United Kingdom. It is widely considered one of the most prestigious sc ...

.http://www.peterorszag.com and http://www.jonorszag.com

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orszag, Steven Alan 1943 births 2011 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Fluid dynamicists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science faculty Princeton University alumni Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Princeton University faculty Yale University faculty Numerical analysts Fellows of the American Physical Society American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent People from Forest Hills, Queens Forest Hills High School (New York) alumni 20th-century American Jews Orszag family