CISE News & Events
Retired CISE Professor Dr Ralph Gordon Selfridge Passes Away
September 2, 2008
Retired CISE professor Dr Ralph Gordon Selfridge passed away Sunday August 31, 2008, at the age of eighty-one. He is survived by his wife, Dr. Betty Rushton, brother Oliver Selfridge, sister Jennifer Macleod, ten step children, seventeen grandchildren, and three great-grand children.
He was born in London, England in 1927 and sailed from Liverpool the day the first bombs hit London in 1939. He earned his BS degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his Master's degree from Cornell University , and his Doctorate degree in mathematics from the University of Oregon.
He worked on the design team for the Sidewinder missile at the China Lake Naval Ordinance Test Station in California. He taught at Miami of Ohio University from 1959-1961, where he programmed and operated the IBM 700 computer.
Dr. Selfridge came to UF in 1961. He was a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science until he retired in 2002. For a time, he was director of the U of F Computing Center (the predecessor of the North-East Regional Data Center, NERDC). His legendary class in numerical methods challenged (or terrified) many good students. He was a life-long proponent of mathematical rigor in computing, particularly in APL.
From the early sixties to the eighties he was a cave diver in the springs and sinkholes of north Florida. He became an aircraft pilot in 1948, and logged more than 5000 hours in the air, flying his beloved Cessna 210 for over forty years.
He was a long-time member of the American Civil Liberties Union, and acted as the Chief Negotiator for the United Faculty of Florida. He was the President of the Gainesville Pilots' Association in 1987. He was active with the Gainesville Little Theater, and played one part with the Gainesville Hippodrome.
