Kenneth R. Jackson

Mailing Address	Computer Science Department, University of Toronto, 40 St.George Street, Room 4283, Toronto, ON, M5S 2E4, Canada
Office	BA 4228
Email	krj [at] cs [dot] utoronto [dot] ca
Phone	416-978-7075
Fax	416-946-7132

Biography

Ken Jackson was born in Montreal, but grew-up in Toronto. He received all his degrees from the University of Toronto: a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science in 1973, an MSc in Computer Science in 1974, and a PhD in Computer Science in 1978. He then spent three years in the Computer Science Department at Yale University, first as a Gibbs Instructor and then as a visiting Assistant Professor, before returning to the Computer Science Department at the University of Toronto in 1981 as an Assistant Professor and NSERC University Research Fellow. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986 and to Full Professor in 1992. He was Associate Chair for Graduate Studies from 1 July 2002 to 30 June 2005. He retired from the department in 2020, but is still active in research.

Research Interests

His primary research interest is numerical computation, with particular emphasis on the numerical solution of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and the associated problems in linear and nonlinear algebra. One focus of his work has been parallel methods for both initial-value problems (IVPs) and boundary-value problems for ODEs. Another focus has been validated (i.e., interval) methods for IVPs for ODEs. Recently, he has become interested in applying numerical methods to practical problems: computational finance, medical imaging and gene regulatory networks in particular. Past projects include numerical methods for weather forecasting, climate modeling and air quality modeling.

More specifically, his research interests include:

• Numerical methods, analysis and computation
• Scientific computing and computational mathematics
• Mathematical software
• Parallel computation
• Numerical solution of initial and boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations and related methods for partial differential equations
• Numerical methods for linear and nonlinear equations that arise in the numerical solution of differential equations
• Validated solution of differential equations
• Solution of large sparse linear systems
• Computational finance
• Medical imaging
• Gene regulatory networks
• Numerical weather prediction and climate modeling
• Numerical air quality modeling

Courses

• Fall 2019:
  • CSC 336: Numerical Methods
  • MMF 2021: Numerical Methods for Finance
• Winter 2020:
  • CSC 466/2305: Numerical Methods for Optimization Problems
• Winter 2019:
  • CSC 446/2310: Computational Methods for Partial Differential Equations
• Winter 2010:
  • CSC 2307: Numerical Software

Selected Publications

Theses and Papers of Students Supervised

Other Points:

• He was president of the Canadian Applied and Industrial Mathematics Society from June 2001 to June 2003.
• He was also associated with the Masters of Mathematical Finance (MMF) and Masters of Financial Insurance (MFI) Programs at the University of Toronto.
• He helped to organize the 2001-02 Thematic Year at the Fields Institute on Numerical and Computational Challenges in Science and Engineering.
• He is currently an Advisor to YetiWare.
• You may also be interested in looking at the website of the Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing Group of the Computer Science Department at the University of Toronto.