Richard_A._Tapia--James_Van_Gundia_Neel

Richard Alfred Tapia (born March 25, 1938) is an American mathematician and University Professor at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the university's highest academic title. In 2011, President Obama awarded Tapia the National Medal of Science. He is currently the Maxfield and Oshman Professor of Engineering; Associate Director of Graduate Studies, Office of Research and Graduate Studies; and Director of the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice University.Tapia's mathematical research is focused on mathematical optimization and iterative methods for nonlinear problems. His current research is in the area of algorithms for constrained optimization and interior point methods for linear and nonlinear programming.