Robert Tarjan
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| Robert Tarjan | |
|---|---|
| Name | Robert Tarjan |
| Birth date | April 30, 1948 |
| Birth place | Pomona, California |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Computer Science, Mathematics |
| Institutions | Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Microsoft Research |
Robert Tarjan is a renowned American computer scientist and mathematician known for his contributions to the fields of algorithm design, data structures, and computational complexity theory, closely collaborating with Donald Knuth, Leonard Adleman, and Richard Karp. His work has had a significant impact on the development of efficient algorithms for various problems, including graph theory and network flow, as studied by Claude Shannon, Alan Turing, and Emmett Witchel. Tarjan's research has been influenced by the works of Edsger W. Dijkstra, John Hopcroft, and Jeffrey Ullman, and has in turn influenced the work of Andrew Yao, Leslie Lamport, and Barbara Liskov. He has also been associated with IBM Research, Bell Labs, and MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
● Early Life and Education
Robert Tarjan was born on April 30, 1948, in Pomona, California, and grew up in a family of mathematicians and engineers, including his father, who worked at Caltech. He developed an interest in mathematics and computer science at an early age, inspired by the works of Isaac Newton, Archimedes, and Ada Lovelace. Tarjan attended Pomona College and later transferred to California Institute of Technology, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science, studying under Richard Feynman and Murray Gell-Mann. He then moved to Stanford University to pursue his graduate studies, working under the supervision of Donald Knuth and Robert Floyd, and earning his Ph.D. in computer science.
● Career
Tarjan began his career as a research scientist at Xerox PARC, where he worked alongside Butler Lampson, Charles Thacker, and Alan Kay on various projects related to computer networks and distributed systems, including the development of the Alto computer and the Ethernet network. He later joined the faculty of Princeton University as a professor of computer science, where he taught courses on algorithm design, data structures, and computational complexity theory, and supervised students such as Daniel Sleator and Robert Sedgewick. Tarjan has also held visiting positions at University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, and MIT, and has collaborated with researchers at Google Research, Microsoft Research, and IBM Research.
● Research and Contributions
Tarjan's research has focused on the development of efficient algorithms for various problems in computer science, including graph theory, network flow, and computational geometry, building on the work of Jack Edmonds, Richard Karp, and Michael Rabin. He is known for his work on depth-first search and topological sorting, as well as his development of the Tarjan's algorithm for finding strongly connected components in directed graphs, which has been used in Google's PageRank algorithm and Facebook's friend suggestion algorithm. Tarjan has also made significant contributions to the field of data structures, including the development of splay trees and Fibonacci heaps, which have been used in database systems and file systems, such as MySQL and Linux.
● Awards and Honors
Tarjan has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to computer science, including the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery, the National Medal of Science from the National Science Foundation, and the Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Association for Computing Machinery, and has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the American Philosophical Society. Tarjan has also received honorary degrees from University of California, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Oxford.
● Personal Life
Tarjan is married to Nancy Tarjan, and they have two children together, Emily Tarjan and James Tarjan. He is an avid hiker and mountain climber, and has climbed Mount Rainier and Mount Whitney with his friends Don Knuth and Richard Stallman. Tarjan is also a talented pianist and has performed in several concerts with the Princeton University Orchestra, including a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 with Yo-Yo Ma and the New York Philharmonic. He has also been involved in various philanthropic activities, including supporting the American Red Cross and the Nature Conservancy, and has donated to Stanford University and Princeton University to support computer science education and research initiatives.