He specialized in numerical computing, founded the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software and was the author of more than 20 books and approximately 300 research articles.
[3] He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from Oklahoma State University in 1954 and 1956;[2] while studying there, he spent his summers in southern California, working in the aerospace industry.
[7] Rice showed an early interest in computing, publishing a paper titled "Electronic Brains" as a college sophomore.
[2] Although his early research was on the mathematics of approximation theory,[2][3] he spent most of his career working in the analysis of algorithms for solving numerical problems, and particularly on the solution of elliptic partial differential equations.
[2] In 1994, he was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for his "for leadership in founding the field of mathematical software and for fundamental contributions to its content".