Jet Propulsion Laboratory (U.S.). Computational Mathematics Group.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory employees formed the JPL Computational Mathematics group in about 1965. The whole section and the computers were in Building 125. Under the leadership of Charles Lawson, the group occupied one or two offices on the second floor, on the front side of the building. This supported group met together and discussed papers its members wrote about a variety of mathematical problems such as FORTRAN subroutines, designs, algorithms for solving large Linear Least Squares Systems and other related type mathematical conversions. They worked in general for the application programming groups in that section.

Part of the funding of the group was an applied math research task from NASA Headquarters and part was various software development applications for JPL users. During the mid-1960's through the early 1970's, the group was very small doing planetary ephemeris work. There were a number of celestial mechanics graduate students who worked as summer hires. As JPL grew, there were other mathematicians who took an interest in joining to share their scientific interest on the various subjects and related systems or equations, including Dave Pierce, Brian Marsden, Jay Lieske and Carol Williams. Additionally, Prentiss Knowlton was a member of the group a few years during the early 1970's. He developed a computerized typesetting system aimed at producing a users' manual for the group's math library of that time. It made use of the Stromberg Carlson 4020 graphic display and recording system.

This system succeeded to the extent that at least one generation of library documentation was produced using it. Another member, John Flynn, invented and initially implemented SFTRAN while he was in the group. Subsequently, he was moved to the Applied Math group to continue development of SFTRAN until his retirement from JPL. More mathematicians joined, until the group reached over 50 members when disbanded in 1998.

Fred Krogh was the senior supervising member of the group from 1968 until he retired from JPL in October 1998. Krogh received a Ph.D. in mathematics at Oregon State University, worked 4 years at TRW Systems and then began work as a mathematician at JPL in 1968.

Later, his primary job was support for the MATH77/mathc90 Libraries. The MATH77 library was selected as one of the first JPL winners in the "Software of the Year" Award. Krogh headed JPL Section 395, Supercomputing. In 1992, Section 395 had merged into Section 366, Advanced Information Systems. Krogh acquired intellectual property rights in the software produced by the group and intended to market it after retirement by way of a company he founded, Math a la Carte.

With Krogh's retirement, the group lost its leadership and financial support. The group ended publishing mathematical papers in September 1998. Charles L. Lawson was another influential member of the group starting in 1965. He was employed at JPL starting in August 1960 through 1996. Lawson completed his Ph. D. in Math in June 1961. Lawson worked on numerical algorithms and mathematical software. He co-authored two books, Computer Approximations and Solving Least Squares Problems as well as numerous articles.

From the description of JPL Computational Mathematics Collection, 1965 - 1998. (Jet Propulsion Laboratory Library and Archives). WorldCat record id: 733100024