Joseph B. Keller was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1923 and educated at New York University (Ph.D.1948). He remained there as a Professor of Mathematics in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences until 1979. Then he moved to Stanford University where he was Professor of Mathematics and Mechanical Engineering until 1993, when he became Professor Emeritus. His research concerns the use of mathematics to solve problems of science and engineering. For example, he developed the Geometrical Theory of Diffraction to describe the propagation of waves. It is widely used to analyze radar reflection from objects, to calculate elastic wave scattering from flaws in solids, to study acoustic wave propagation in the ocean, etc. Another example is his formulation of the EBK method of quantization to determine energy levels of atoms and molecules in quantum mechanics and to solve characteristic value problems in other fields. Other problems he has worked on are described in his list of publications. Professor Keller is a member of the National Academy of Science, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London, and he was Honorary Professor of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge. He is a recipient of the Wolf Prize (1997), the Frederick E. Nemmers Prize (1996), the NAS Award in Applied Mathematics and Numerical Analysis (1995), the National Medal of Science (1988), the Timoshenko Medal (1984), the Eringen Medal (1981), the von Karman Prize (1979) and he was the Gibbs Lecturer of the American Mathematical Society (1977), and the von Neumann Lecturer of SIAM (1983).
