Donald W. Marquardt (March 13, 1929 – July 5, 1997[1]) was an American statistician, the rediscoverer of the Levenberg–Marquardt nonlinear least squares fitting algorithm.[2]
Marquardt joined DuPont in 1953 and worked there for 39 years. He also founded and managed the DuPont Quality Management & Technology Center.[1] In 1963 he published his famous paper "algorithm for least-squares estimation of nonlinear problems" in SIAM journal. Marquardt developed his algorithm to solve fitting nonlinear chemical models to laboratory data.[2]
As manager of the DuPont Applied Statistics Group, he led development of the Product Quality Management(PQM) methodology and computer systems that implemented the company's continuous improvement initiatives from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s.[3]
In 1991, he established his own company, Donald W. Marquardt and Associates, which provides consulting and training in quality management, quality assurance, ISO 9000 standards, applied statistics, strategic planning and organizational change.[1]
He died from a heart attack at the age of 68.[1]