Brockett was born on October 22, 1938, in
Seville, Ohio, to Roger Lawrence and Grace Ester (Patch) Brockett. Brockett received his
B.S. from
Case Western Reserve University in 1960, and continued on to receive his
M.S. in 1962 and his
Ph.D. in 1964 from
Case Western Reserve University as well. His Ph.D. dissertation was
The Invertibility of Dynamic Systems with Application to Control under the supervision of
Mihajlo D. Mesarovic. At Case Western, Brockett was classmates with
Donald Knuth. After teaching at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1963 to 1969, he joined the faculty at
Harvard University. At Harvard, Brockett became the Gordon McKay Professor of
Applied Mathematics and in 1989 the
An Wang Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Brockett was known for his work on
control theory and linear differential systems; in 1970 he published the textbook
Finite Dimensional Linear Systems. Brockett has advised over 50 students, including
Daniel Liberzon,
Jan Willems,
David Dobkin,
John Baras,
P. S. Krishnaprasad, and
John Baillieul. After experiencing a series of cardiac events, Brockett died at
Yale New Haven Hospital in
New Haven, Connecticut, on March 19, 2023, at the age of 84. ==Awards and honors==