Christopher David Godsil is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

and the former Chair at the Department of

Combinatorics Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and as an end to obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many ...

and

Optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criteria, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfiel ...

in the faculty of mathematics at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

. He wrote the popular textbook on algebraic graph theory, entitled ''Algebraic Graph Theory'', with Gordon Royle, His earlier textbook on

algebraic combinatorics Algebraic combinatorics is an area of mathematics that employs methods of abstract algebra, notably group theory and representation theory, in various combinatorial contexts and, conversely, applies combinatorial techniques to problems in algeb ...

discussed

distance-regular graph In the mathematical field of graph theory, a distance-regular graph is a regular graph such that for any two vertices and , the number of vertices at distance from and at distance from depends only upon , , and the distance between and . ...

s and association schemes.

Background

He started the

Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics ''Journal of Algebraic Combinatorics'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal covering algebraic combinatorics. It was established in 1992 and is published by Springer Science+Business Media. The editor-in-chief is Ilias S. Kotsireas (Wilfrid Lauri ...

, and was the Editor-in-Chief of the

Electronic Journal of Combinatorics The ''Electronic Journal of Combinatorics'' is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal covering research in combinatorial mathematics. The journal was established in 1994 by Herbert Wilf (University of Pennsylvania) and Neil Calkin (Geor ...

from 2004 to 2008. He is also on the editorial board of the

Journal of Combinatorial Theory The ''Journal of Combinatorial Theory'', Series A and Series B, are mathematical journals specializing in combinatorics and related areas. They are published by Elsevier. ''Series A'' is concerned primarily with structures, designs, and applicati ...

Series B and

Combinatorica ''Combinatorica'' is an international journal of mathematics, publishing papers in the fields of combinatorics and computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theore ...

. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1979 at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

under the supervision of Derek Alan Holton. He wrote a paper with

Paul Erdős Paul Erdős ( ; 26March 191320September 1996) was a Hungarian mathematician. He was one of the most prolific mathematicians and producers of mathematical conjectures of the 20th century. pursued and proposed problems in discrete mathematics, g ...

, so making his

Erdős number The Erdős number () describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual ...

equal to 1.

, Chris D. Godsil, S. G. Krantz, and T. D. Parsons, "Intersection graphs for families of balls in $R\sp n$." ''European J. Combin.'' 9(5), pp. 501-505, (1988).

Notes

References

* * Living people Academic staff of the University of Waterloo University of Melbourne alumni Graph theorists Year of birth missing (living people) {{mathematician-stub