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David H. Bailey

PhD; Senior Scientist, Computational Research Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Summary

Bailey's career includes 15 years at NASA's Ames Research Center, and 14 years (as of 2012) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. His 150 papers and four books encompass studies in numerical analysis, parallel computing and computational or "experimental" mathematics. His best-known work in parallel computing is a 1991 paper that presented the "NAS Parallel Benchmarks," a suite of tests now widely used in analyses of performance on highly parallel computer systems. His best-known work in computational mathematics is a 1997 paper (co-authored with Canadian mathematicians Peter Borwein and Simon Plouffe) that presented a new formula for pi, which has the remarkable property that it permits one to directly calculate binary or hexadecimal digits of pi beginning at an arbitrary starting position. Bailey frequently collaborates with Australian mathematician Jonathan Borwein (Peter Borwein's brother), and has co-authored numerous Conversation articles with him.

Experience

  • Senior Scientist, Computational Research Department, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA 1998 – present

Education

  • Stanford University, Ph.D./Mathematics, 1976
  • Brigham Young University, B.S./Mathematics, 1972

Honours

Sidney Fernbach Award, 1993 (IEEE Computer Society)
Chauvenet Prize, 1993 (Mathematical Association of America)
Merten Hasse Prize, 1993 (Mathematical Association of America)
ACM Gordon Bell Prize, 2008 (Association for Computing Machinery)