He was born in Ilford, England in 1920, graduated in 1941 from University College London with a 1st class honors degree in Electrical Engineering.

He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II.

[1] Prof Rosenbrock received many awards including the IEE Premium, the IEE Heaviside Premium, and the IEE Control Achievement Award, the first IEEE Control Systems Science and Engineering Award (1982),[2] the Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1994)[3] and the IChemE Moulton Medal.

[4][5] Howard Rosenbrock was a pioneer of multivariable frequency domain control design methods.

The Rosenbrock function is a benchmark test for numerical optimization algorithms.