Ronald J. DiPerna (11 February 1947, in Somerville, Massachusetts – 8 January 1989, in Princeton, New Jersey) was an American mathematician, who worked on nonlinear partial differential equations. Ronald Diperna did his undergraduate studies at Tufts University before being advised to attendgraduate school by Professor George Leger. In 1972 DiPerna received from the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences his Ph.D. under James Glimm with thesis Global solutions to a class of nonlinear hyperbolic systems. He held academic positions at Brown University, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, and Duke University, before he became in 1985 a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He died unexpectedly at age 41 shortly after the end of a sabbatical year as a vi