Erik D. Demaine (born February 28, 1981) is a Canadian-American 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

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

and a former

child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at the level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some f ...

Early life and education

Demaine was born in

Halifax, Nova Scotia Halifax is the capital and most populous municipality of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the most populous municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of 2024, it is estimated that the population of the H ...

, to mathematician and sculptor Martin L. Demaine and Judy Anderson. From the age of 7, he was identified as a child prodigy and spent time traveling across North America with his father. He was

home-schooled Homeschooling or home schooling (American English), also known as home education or elective home education (EHE) (British English), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted ...

during that time span until entering university at the age of 12. Demaine completed his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

at 14 years of age at

Dalhousie University Dalhousie University (commonly known as Dal) is a large public research university in Nova Scotia, Canada, with three campuses in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Halifax, a fourth in Bible Hill, Nova Scotia, Bible Hill, and a second medical school campus ...

in Canada, and completed his

PhD 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 ...

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 ...

by the time he was 20 years old. Demaine's

dissertation, a work in the field of

computational origami The discipline of origami or paper folding has received a considerable amount of mathematics, mathematical study. Fields of interest include a given paper model's flat-foldability (whether the model can be flattened without damaging it), and the ...

, was completed at the University of Waterloo under the supervision of

Anna Lubiw Anna Lubiw is a computer scientist known for her work in computational geometry and graph theory. She is currently a professor at the University of Waterloo. Education Lubiw received her Ph.D from the University of Toronto in 1986 under the ...

and Ian Munro. This work was awarded the Canadian

Governor General's Gold Medal The Governor General's Academic Medal is awarded to the student graduating with the highest grade point average from a Canadian high school, college or university program. They are presented by the educational institution on behalf of the Governor ...

from the

and the

NSERC The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC; , CRSNG) is the major federal agency responsible for funding natural sciences and engineering research in Canada. NSERC directly funds university professors and students as ...

Doctoral Prize (2003) for the best

PhD thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

and research in Canada. Some of the work from this thesis was later incorporated into his book ''

Geometric Folding Algorithms ''Geometric Folding Algorithms: Linkages, Origami, Polyhedra'' is a monograph on the mathematics and computational geometry of mechanical linkages, paper folding, and polyhedral nets, by Erik Demaine and Joseph O'Rourke. It was published in 20 ...

'' on the

mathematics of paper folding The discipline of origami or paper folding has received a considerable amount of mathematical study. Fields of interest include a given paper model's flat-foldability (whether the model can be flattened without damaging it), and the use of paper ...

published with Joseph O'Rourke in 2007.

Professional accomplishments

Demaine joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2001 at age 20, reportedly the youngest professor in the history of MIT, and was promoted to full professorship in 2011. Demaine is a member of the

Theory of Computation In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with what problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm, how efficiently they can be solved or to what degree (e.g., app ...

group at

MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...

. Mathematical origami artwork by Erik and Martin Demaine was part of the ''Design and the Elastic Mind'' exhibit at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

in 2008, and has been included in the MoMA permanent collection. That same year, he was one of the featured artists in ''

Between the Folds ''Between the Folds'' is a 2008 film documentary about origami. Directed by Vanessa Gould and broadcast on Independent Lens, the film received a 2010 Peabody Award. Notable origami artists featured in the film include Erik and Martin Demaine, ...

'', an international documentary film about origami practitioners which was later broadcast on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

television. In connection with a 2012 exhibit, three of his curved origami artworks with Martin Demaine are in the permanent collection of the

Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...

of the

Smithsonian Museum The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, education and research centers, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trus ...

. Demaine was a fan of

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing magic, scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writin ...

and in 2001 he teamed up with his father

Martin Demaine Martin L. (Marty) Demaine (born 1942) is an artist and mathematician, the Angelika and Barton Weller artist in residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, ...

and

Gathering 4 Gardner Gathering 4 Gardner (G4G) is an educational foundation and non-profit corporation (Gathering 4 Gardner, Inc.) devoted to preserving the legacy and spirit of prolific writer Martin Gardner. G4G organizes conferences where people who have been ins ...

founder Tom M. Rodgers to edit a tribute book for Gardner on his 90th birthday. From 2016 to 2020 he was president of the board of directors of Gathering 4 Gardner.

Honours and awards

In 2003, Demaine was awarded the

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and colloquially called the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to typically between 20 and ...

, known colloquially as the "genius grant". In 2013, Demaine received the EATCS

Presburger Award The Presburger Award, started in 2010, is awarded each year by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) to "a young scientist for outstanding contributions in theoretical computer science, documented by a published paper o ...

for young scientists. The award citation listed accomplishments including his work on the

carpenter's rule problem The carpenter's rule problem is a discrete geometry problem, which can be stated in the following manner: ''Can a simple planar polygon be moved continuously to a position where all its vertices are in convex position, so that the edge lengths and ...

hinged dissection In geometry, a hinged dissection, also known as a swing-hinged dissection or Dudeney dissection, is a kind of dissection problem, geometric dissection in which all of the pieces are connected into a chain by "hinged" points, such that the rearr ...

prefix sum In computer science, the prefix sum, cumulative sum, inclusive scan, or simply scan of a sequence of numbers is a second sequence of numbers , the summation, sums of Prefix (computer science), prefixes (running totals) of the input sequence: : : : ...

data structures, competitive analysis of

binary search tree In computer science, a binary search tree (BST), also called an ordered or sorted binary tree, is a Rooted tree, rooted binary tree data structure with the key of each internal node being greater than all the keys in the respective node's left ...

graph minor In graph theory, an undirected graph is called a minor of the graph if can be formed from by deleting edges, vertices and by contracting edges. The theory of graph minors began with Wagner's theorem that a graph is planar if and only if ...

s, and computational

origami ) is the Japanese art of paper folding. In modern usage, the word "origami" is often used as an inclusive term for all folding practices, regardless of their culture of origin. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a ...

. That same year, he was awarded a fellowship by the

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation is a private foundation formed in 1925 by Olga and Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died on April 26, 1922. The organization awards Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Gr ...

. For his work on

bidimensionality Bidimensionality theory characterizes a broad range of graph problems (bidimensional) that admit efficient approximate, fixed-parameter or kernel solutions in a broad range of graphs. These graph classes include planar graphs, map graphs, bounded ...

, he was the winner of the

Nerode Prize The EATCS–IPEC Nerode Prize is a theoretical computer science prize awarded for outstanding research in the area of parameterized complexity, multivariate algorithmics. It is awarded by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science an ...

in 2015 along with his co-authors Fedor Fomin, Mohammad T. Hajiaghayi, and Dimitrios Thilikos. The work was the study of a general technique for developing both

fixed-parameter tractable In computer science, parameterized complexity is a branch of computational complexity theory that focuses on classifying computational problems according to their inherent difficulty with respect to ''multiple'' parameters of the input or output. ...

exact algorithms and

approximation algorithm In computer science and operations research, approximation algorithms are efficient algorithms that find approximate solutions to optimization problems (in particular NP-hard problems) with provable guarantees on the distance of the returned sol ...

s for a class of algorithmic problems on graphs. In 2016, he became a fellow at the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

. He was given an honorary doctorate by

Bard College Bard College is a private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains within the Hudson River Historic District ...

in 2017.

References

External links

Erik Demaine

Documentary film featuring Erik Demaine and 14 other international origami practitioners * {{DEFAULTSORT:Demaine, Erik 1981 births Living people MacArthur Fellows Canadian computer scientists Theoretical computer scientists Origami artists Researchers in geometric algorithms Recreational mathematicians People from Halifax, Nova Scotia MIT School of Engineering faculty University of Waterloo alumni Dalhousie University alumni Mathematical artists 2016 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory people

Early life and education

Professional accomplishments

Honours and awards

See also

References

External links