John Ockendon

John Richard Ockendon FRS (born 1940)^[1] is an applied mathematician noted especially for his contribution to fluid dynamics and novel applications of mathematics to real world problems.^[3] He is a professor at the University of Oxford and an Emeritus Fellow at St Catherine's College, Oxford, served as the first director of the Oxford Centre for Collaborative Applied Mathematics (OCCAM) and a former director of the Smith Institute for Industrial Mathematics and System Engineering.^{[citation needed]}

John Ockendon FRS
Terracotta bust of Ockendon at St Catherine's College, Oxford
Born	John Richard Ockendon (1940-10-13) October 13, 1940 (age 84)[1]
Education	Dulwich College
Alma mater	University of Oxford (MA, DPhil)
Spouse	Hilary Ockendon ​ (m. 1967)​ [1]
Awards	IMA Gold Medal (2006)
Scientific career
Fields	Applied mathematics
Institutions	University of Oxford
Thesis	Some problems in fluid dynamics (1965)
Doctoral advisor	Alan B. Tayler[2][3]
Doctoral students	Linda Cummings[2] Frank T. Smith[2]
Website	www.maths.ox.ac.uk/people/john.ockendon

Education

Ockendon was privately educated at Dulwich College^[1] and the University of Oxford where he was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1965^[4] for research on fluid dynamics supervised by Alan B. Tayler.^[2][5]

Research and career

His initial fluid mechanics interests included hypersonic aerodynamics, creeping flow, sloshing and channel flows and leading to flows in porous media, ship hydrodynamics and models for flow separation.^{[citation needed]}

He moved on^[when?] to free and moving boundary problems. He pioneered the study of diffusion-controlled moving boundary problems in the 1970s his involvement centring on models for phase changes and elastic contact problems all built around the paradigm of the Hele-Shaw free boundary problem. Other industrial collaboration has led to new ideas for lens design, fibre manufacture, extensional and surface-tension- driven flows and glass manufacture, fluidised-bed models, semiconductor device modelling and a range of other problems in mechanics and heat and mass transfer, especially scattering and ray theory, nonlinear wave propagation, nonlinear oscillations, nonlinear diffusion and impact in solids and liquids.^{[citation needed]}

His efforts to promote mathematical collaboration with industry led him to organise annual meetings of the Study Groups with Industry from 1972 to 1989.^{[citation needed]}

Awards and honours

Ockendon was elected Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1999, and awarded the IMA Gold Medal by the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications in 2006.^[6]

Personal life

Ockendon is married to his coauthor and colleague Hilary Ockendon (née Mason).^[1][7] His Who's Who entry lists his recreations as mathematical modelling, bird watching, Hornby-Dublo model trains and old sports cars.^[1]