Clyde F. Martin

MA 1967, PhD 1971, Mathematics		Clyde Martin's memories of his UW years include the sheer beauty of the campus and the area and the snowfall which marked his first week on campus: "My wife and I went out the first morning, and the flowers were standing above the snow, still in full bloom, and making a striking contrast with the snow." But more significant in his remembrance is the way his mathematics professors nurtured his interests and allowed him to work on basic research. "I had what was, for me, the best of all possible worlds in the graduate program. There was a group of young faculty willing to talk about almost any problem, no matter how poorly posed or formulated. I was able to learn from almost the entire mathematics faculty and was able to develop the skill of talking to other people about their interests." After leaving Wyoming, he worked for several years as an aeronautical engineer for NASA, then went to Utah State where he developed "a lifelong love of problems in soil physics and irrigation engineering." He left Utah for Harvard, where he returned to mathematics and became a founder of the field of mathematical control theory. Following his time at Harvard, he worked at Case Western Reserve University, where he began a program of biomedical engineering. In 1983, he joined the faculty of Texas Tech University, where he is Paul Whitfield Horn Professor. His work focuses on problems in plant science, irrigation, medicine and soil physics. In 1993, he was appointed professor of preventive medicine at Texas Tech's Health Sciences Center. He is also an adjunct professor of engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the founding editor of the Journal of Mathematical Systems, Estimation, and Control and actively works for more cooperation between U.S. and Russian control theory groups.