Richard Allen Askey (June 4, 1933 – October 9, 2019)[1] was an American mathematician, known for his expertise in the area of special functions.

The Askey–Gasper inequality for Jacobi polynomials is essential in de Brange's famous proof of the Bieberbach conjecture.

[3] Askey was a Guggenheim Fellow, 1969–1970, which academic year he spent at the Mathematisch Centrum in Amsterdam.

In 1983, he gave an invited lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM)[4] in Warsaw.

[10] Askey was also very much involved with commenting and writing on mathematical education at American schools.