James O. Wilkesis Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he served as department chairman and assistant dean for admissions. From 1989 to 1992, he was an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor. Wilkes coauthoredApplied Numerical Methods(Wiley, 1969) andDigital Computing and Numerical Methods(Wiley, 1973). He received his bachelors degree from the University of Cambridge and his M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan. His research interests involve numerical methods for solving a wide variety of engineering problems.