Background
He was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 1943, the eldest son of Jack Gordon, a salesman and American handball champion, and artist Diana Gordon.
biologist theoretical biologist
He was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 6, 1943, the eldest son of Jack Gordon, a salesman and American handball champion, and artist Diana Gordon.
Gordon was educated at University of Chicago where he did an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and a Doctor of Philosophy at University of Oregon in Chemical Physics under Terrell L Hill.
Gordon was a professor at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada 1978-2011. He is retired and currently works as an emeritus scientist for the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory in Panacea, Florida where he winters, and he holds an adjunct position in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Wayne State University. Gordon lives in Alonsa, Manitoba, Canada.
His thesis was On Stochastic Growth and Form and Steady State Properties of Ising Lattice Membranes.
He published his first paper in 1966. Gordon is an eclectic scientist and prolific writer with over 200 peer reviewed publications in a wide number of fields.
He has edited 16 academic books and special issues of scientific journals including two books of his own. He has been summoned twice to the Canadian Parliament to testify as an expert scientific witness.
He is best known for interdisciplinary and cross disciplinary work bridging biology with fields such as mathematics, engineering, physics and chemistry.
He wrote the first paper on diatom nanotechnology founding that field He started the field of adaptive image processing. He has also published about algal biofuels, computed tomography, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome prevention, neural tube defects, embryo physics, as well as research and social ethics.
His most cited paper is one where he applied the linear Kaczmarz method to create the nonlinear Algebraic Reconstruction Technique for image reconstruction with Robert Bender and Gabor Herman in 1970.
, R., G.T., North.K. The Canadian charity With Wings, owes its inception to Richard Gordon. With Wings is a collaborative project between Canadian, British, and American students and their counterparts in Afghanistan to provide books for universities throughout Afghanistan.
Sally Wishart Armstrong described Gordon"s early efforts to start With Wings in her book Ascent of Women.