Jonathan Mestel

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Dr Andrew Jonathan Mestel (born 13 March 1957 in Cambridge, England) is an applied mathematician at Imperial College who works on magnetohydrodynamics and biological fluid dynamics. He was the first person to be awarded chess International Grandmaster titles by FIDE in both over-the-board play and problem solving.

He was World under-16 chess champion in 1974, was awarded the chess GM title in 1982, won the British Chess Championship in 1976, 1983 and 1988, and the World Chess Solving Championship in 1997. Along with John Nunn, Mestel is also a medal-winning member of the British Chess Solving Team.

Between 1976 and 1988, he was a frequent member of the English Chess Olympiad squad, winning three team medals (two silver and one bronze). In 1984, he took an individual gold medal for an outstanding 7/9 performance. Other notable results for English teams were in 1978 at the World Student Olympiad in Mexico where he obtained a Gold Medal, and at the 1983 European Team Championship in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

He wrote the mainframe computer game Brand X with Peter Killworth, which was later rewritten for Windows and released commercially as Philosopher's Quest.

He is the son of astronomer Leon Mestel. Married since 1982 to Anna O´Donovan, they have a son, David, born in February 1992.