The Hohn-Nash Fellowship is given to graduate students in recognition of outstanding scholarship and promise in applied mathematics.

This award was established in 1997 by Gene Golub to honor Professors Franz Hohn and John Purcell "Jack" Nash, pioneers in the field of applied and computational mathematics and dedicated to the teaching profession, with additional support from the friends and families of Professors Hohn and Nash.

Gene H. Golub is the Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University where he has been a faculty member since 1962. He received his B.S. (1953), A.M. (1954), and Ph.D. (1959), all from the University of Illinois, and in 1991, the university awarded him an honorary degree. He is a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Science, and is a Fellow of the AAAS. Golub donated the money for this award in memory of Professors Hohn and Nash.

Franz Edward Hohn received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1940. After teaching at the Universities of Arizona and Maine and at Guilford College, he joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1948 and remained a valued member of the department of Mathematics until his death in 1977. Professor Hohn served as graduate supervisor for mathematics from 1968-1970 and was Associate Dean of the Graduate College from 1970-1972. He was a specialist in applied mathematics and automata theory and the author of a widely used textbook on elementary matrix algebra.

John Purcell Nash received his Ph.D. from Rice Institute in 1940. After teaching at the University of Notre Dame, he joined the Radiation Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He became a research physicist for the Kimberly-Clark Corporation in Neenah, Wisconsin, before returning to Illinois in 1948. Nash helped develop the Illiac I and was a Professor of Applied Mathematics from 1950-1957. After his career at Illinois, he became vice president of Lockheed Missile Space Corp., and assistant general manager of the Space Systems Division. He died in 1972.