Elliott Ward Cheney Jr.

Elliott Ward Cheney Jr. (June 28, 1929 – July 13, 2016) was an American mathematician and an emeritus professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Known to his friends and colleagues as Ward Cheney, he was one of the pioneers in the fields of approximation theory and numerical analysis. His 1966 book, An Introduction to Approximation Theory, remains in print and is "highly respected and well known", "a small book almost encyclopedic in character", and "is a classic with few competitors".