John Rischard Rice, a leading scientist and educator, passed away peacefully of natural causes at home on January 7th. John was 89 years old.

John was born on June 6, 1934, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was the son of John Coykendall “Kirk” Rice and Margaret Lucille Rice (Rischard). After living in many small towns in Oklahoma, his family settled in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Just as John was to start high school, his father accepted the post of director of the government Technical School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. John and his parents left for Africa, after having been outside Oklahoma only once before in his life. John and his family fell in love with Ethiopia. John was a boy scout and loved recounting his adventures with his troop. John attended the French High School; he attended it in the mornings and studied blacksmithing and welding at the Technical School in the afternoons.

After three adventure filled years in Ethiopia, John returned to Oklahoma in 1951 to attend Oklahoma State University. He graduated in May 1954 at the tender age of nineteen. His ROTC obligation kept him another year, so he obtained a master’s degree in mathematics in 1956. John worked summers in the aerospace industry. During his senior year, he met Nancy Ann Bradfield in French class, and they married the following year on December 19, 1954.

John and Nancy moved to Pasadena, California, where John attended the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics on June 12, 1959, under the supervision of Arthur Erdélyi. While at Caltech, John and Nancy’s daughter Amy was born in 1957. After receiving his Ph.D., John taught part time and consulted for North American Aviation (now Rockwell International). John won a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Bureau of Standards (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, NIST), and spent a year in Washington DC while living in Silver Spring. John and Nancy then moved to Pontiac, Michigan, where John worked as a Research Mathematician at the General Motors Research Laboratories in 1960 -1963. John and Nancy’s daughter Jenna was born in 1961.

At the age of 29, John joined the faculty of Purdue University as a full professor with a joint appointment between Mathematics and the first Computer Science department. John was the Head of the Computer Sciences Department from 1983 to 1996. In 1989, he was appointed as the W. Brooks Fortune Professor, and was shortly elevated to distinguished professor. John authored over 300 articles and was the author or co-author of 25 book chapters and 21 books. John’s first article (on computation) was published while he was a college sophomore. In 1969 John co-authored the widely-used textbook Introduction to Computer Science with his father.

John was noted for his work in mathematical computation, especially approximation theory, the solution of elliptic partial differential equations, analysis of algorithms, and scientific computing. He led the creation of ELLPACK software, which was widely used in science and engineering. In 1970, he organized the first two Symposia on Mathematical Software and was the founding editor of the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software (TOMS) in 1975; he remained editor-in-chief until 1993. In 1974,

John cofounded IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing) working group 2.5 on mathematical software. John had three of his PhD students become members, Tom Aird, Elias Houstis, and Mo Mu. In 1999, John was a co-founder, with Purdue colleagues, Mike Atallah, Tim Korb and Hoi Chang, of the company Arxan (now Digital.ai), specializing in producing digital anti-tamper technology.

Among countless professional activities and honors, John was an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering in 1994, a Fellow of the ACM, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He received the George E. Forsythe Memorial Lectureship in 1975, the IFIP Silver Core Award in 1989 and a Sigma Xi Research Achievement Award in 1994 John served on the Computing Research Association (CRA) board of directors from 1987 to 1994 and was elected chair from 1991-1993. A special ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software issue was issued in John’s honor in 2000, vol 26(2). John retired from Purdue University in the summer of 2004 and he and Nancy continued to live in West Lafayette until her death in 2008 and his passing this year.

John’s second “profession” was as the owner of a flower shop, The House of Flowers, in Santa Barbara, California, from 1970 to 1986. Margie Bradfield, his mother-in-law, operated the flower shop. John and family spent many summers and vacations in Santa Barbara, and they grew to love the town.

John’s third profession was in investments and money management. In the mid-1970s he and fellow Purdue Professor and good friend Robert E. Lynch started RandL Management, a small company that managed investments of theirs, their family members, and a few close friends. John started every morning with a cup of coffee and the Wall Street Journal.

John and Nancy had a great love for travel, and they traveled to every continent except Antarctica. Their longest trip was in 1971 when John, Nancy and their daughters spent four months traveling (literally) around the world. John visited a total of 130 countries and all 50 states during his lifetime. John and Nancy met and made many friends around the world as a result of their travels, and they were fortunate to be able to visit with many of John’s former students and colleagues both in the United States and abroad.

John’s other interests included bowling, downhill skiing (which he took up later in life!), astronomy, and architecture. John designed two of his own homes and his parents’ home when they retired and moved to West Lafayette. John also loved his family’s many pets, dogs, cats, and an orphaned blind racoon. The comic strip “Garfield” was his favorite.

John was preceded in death by his beloved wife and best friend of fifty-four years Nancy, his parents, his mother-in-law Margie, and his second wife Janice Lauer (whom he married in 2010 after Nancy’s passing). John is survived by his two daughters, Amy L. Rice, and Jenna Rice Thomas (spouse William “Rick” Thomas), brother-in-law Larry Bradfield and his nephews Scott Bradfield and Brett Bradfield. John was admired and loved by his family, friends and colleagues and he will be greatly missed.

Contributions to honor the memory of John Rice may be made to https://connect.purdue.edu/portal/s/givenow. John’s daughters are planning a get together of friends and family in Montecito, California during April 26 to 28, 2024 to celebrate John’s life and to raise a glass of wine in his honor.