Brief Bio:
Gil Strang was born in Chicago in 1934 and graduated from MIT in 1955 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. He then received a Rhodes Scholarship to University of Oxford, where he received his B.A. and M.A. from Balliol College in 1957.
He earned his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1959 as a National Science Foundation Fellow, under the supervision of Peter K. Henrici. His dissertation was titled "Difference Methods for Mixed Boundary Value Problems".
While at Oxford, Strang met his future wife Jillian Shannon, and they married in 1958. Following his Ph.D. at UCLA, they have lived in Wellesley, Massachusetts for almost all of his 62 years on the MIT faculty. The Strangs have three sons David, John, and Robert and describe themselves as a very close-knit family. He retired on May 15, 2023 after giving his final Linear Algebra lecture at MIT.
Strang's teaching has focused on Linear Algebra which has helped the subject become essential for students of many majors. His linear algebra video lectures for Math 18.06 and 18.065 are popular on YouTube and MIT OpenCourseware. Strang founded Wellesley-Cambridge Press to publish Introduction to Linear Algebra (now in 6th edition) and ten other books.
The Press contnues at full strength, with email to gilstrang@gmail.com