David Arthur Eppstein (born 1963) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and mathematician. He is a distinguished professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

at the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

. He is known for his work in computational geometry,

graph algorithms An algorithm is fundamentally a set of rules or defined procedures that is typically designed and used to solve a specific problem or a broad set of problems. Broadly, algorithms define process(es), sets of rules, or methodologies that are to be f ...

, and

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research-and-application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

. In 2011, he was named an

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

Biography

Born in

Windsor Windsor may refer to: Places *Detroit–Windsor, Michigan-Ontario, USA-Canada, North America; a cross-border metropolitan region Australia New South Wales *Windsor, New South Wales ** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area Queen ...

, England, in 1963, Eppstein received a B.S. in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

in 1984, and later an

M.S. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

(1985) and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

(1989) in computer science from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, after which he took a postdoctoral position at

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

Palo Alto Research Center Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

. He joined the UC Irvine faculty in 1990, and was co-chair of the Computer Science Department there from 2002 to 2005. In 2014, he was named a Chancellor's Professor. In October 2017, Eppstein was one of 396 members elected as fellows of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

. Eppstein is an amateur

digital photographer Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is stor ...

. He is also a

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

editor and

administrator Administrator or admin may refer to: Job roles Computing and internet * Database administrator, a person who is responsible for the environmental aspects of a database * Forum administrator, one who oversees discussions on an Internet forum * N ...

with over 200,000 edits.

Research interests

In computer science, Eppstein's research has included work on

minimum spanning tree A minimum spanning tree (MST) or minimum weight spanning tree is a subset of the edges of a connected, edge-weighted undirected graph that connects all the vertices together, without any cycles and with the minimum possible total edge weight. ...

shortest path In graph theory, the shortest path problem is the problem of finding a path between two vertices (or nodes) in a graph such that the sum of the weights of its constituent edges is minimized. The problem of finding the shortest path between two ...

s, dynamic

graph data structure In computer science, a graph is an abstract data type that is meant to implement the undirected graph and directed graph concepts from the field of graph theory within mathematics. A graph data structure consists of a finite (and possibly mutab ...

graph coloring In graph theory, graph coloring is a methodic assignment of labels traditionally called "colors" to elements of a Graph (discrete mathematics), graph. The assignment is subject to certain constraints, such as that no two adjacent elements have th ...

graph drawing Graph drawing is an area of mathematics and computer science combining methods from geometric graph theory and information visualization to derive two-dimensional depictions of graph (discrete mathematics), graphs arising from applications such ...

and

geometric Geometry (; ) is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician w ...

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 ...

. He has published also in application areas such as finite element meshing, which is used in engineering design, and in

computational statistics Computational statistics, or statistical computing, is the study which is the intersection of statistics and computer science, and refers to the statistical methods that are enabled by using computational methods. It is the area of computational ...

, particularly in

robust Robustness is the property of being strong and healthy in constitution. When it is transposed into a system, it refers to the ability of tolerating perturbations that might affect the system's functional body. In the same line ''robustness'' can ...

, multivariate,

nonparametric statistics Nonparametric statistics is a type of statistical analysis that makes minimal assumptions about the underlying distribution of the data being studied. Often these models are infinite-dimensional, rather than finite dimensional, as in parametric s ...

. Eppstein served as the program chair for the theory track of the ACM

Symposium on Computational Geometry The International Symposium on Computational Geometry (SoCG) is an academic conference in computational geometry. Today its acronym is pronounced "sausage." It was founded in 1985, with the program committee consisting of David Dobkin, Joseph O'Rou ...

in 2001, the program chair of the ACM-SIAM

Symposium on Discrete Algorithms The Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms (SODA) is an academic conference in the fields of algorithm design and discrete mathematics. It is considered to be one of the top conferences for research in algorithms. SODA has been organized a ...

in 2002, and the co-chair for the

International Symposium on Graph Drawing The International Symposium on Graph Drawing (GD) is an annual academic conference in which researchers present peer reviewed papers on graph drawing, information visualization of Network theory, network information, geometric graph theory, and re ...

in 2009.

Selected publications

* ** * * * Republished in *

Books

* *

References

External links

David Eppstein's profile
at the