Frances Foong Chu Yao () is a Taiwanese-American mathematician and theoretical computer scientist. She is currently a Chair Professor at the

Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences The Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS, ) is a research institute at Tsinghua University in Beijing, which conducts interdisciplinary research in computer science and quantum physics. History and structure The institute w ...

(IIIS) of

Tsinghua University Tsinghua University (THU) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. It is affiliated with and funded by the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Constructio ...

. She was Chair Professor and Head of the Department 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

City University of Hong Kong The City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) is a public research university in Kowloon Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong. It was founded in 1984 as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong and formally established as the City University of Hong Kong in 1994 ...

, where she is now an

honorary professor Honorary titles (professor, president, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as ...

Life

After receiving a B.S. in mathematics from

National Taiwan University National Taiwan University (NTU; zh, t=國立臺灣大學, poj=Kok-li̍p Tâi-oân Tāi-ha̍k, p=, s=) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. Founded in 1928 during Taiwan under J ...

in 1969, Yao did her Ph.D. studies under the supervision of Michael J. Fischer 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 ...

, receiving her Ph.D. in 1973. Her doctoral dissertation was titled, "On Lower Bounds for Selection Problems." She then held positions at the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

, and

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 ...

, before joining the staff at the

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center 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 ...

in 1979 where she stayed until her retirement in 1999. In 2003, she came out of retirement to become the Head and a Chair Professor of the Department of Computer Science at City University of Hong Kong, which she held until June 2011. She is a

Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned society, learned or professional society, p ...

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 ...

; in 1991, she and

Ronald Graham Ronald Lewis Graham (October 31, 1935July 6, 2020) was an American mathematician credited by the American Mathematical Society as "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years". He ...

won the

Lester R. Ford Award ''The American Mathematical Monthly'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of mathematics. It was established by Benjamin Finkel in 1894 and is published by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Mathematical Association of America. It is an expositor ...

of the

Mathematical Association of America The Mathematical Association of America (MAA) is a professional society that focuses on mathematics accessible at the undergraduate level. Members include university A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary edu ...

for their expository article, ''A Whirlwind Tour of Computational Geometry''. Yao's husband,

Andrew Yao Andrew Chi-Chih Yao ( zh , c = 姚期智 , p = Yáo Qīzhì; born December 24, 1946) is a Chinese computer scientist, physicist, and computational theorist. He is currently a professor and the dean of Institute for Interdisciplinary Informati ...

, is also a well-known theoretical computer scientist and

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the fi ...

winner. Much of Yao's research has been in the subject of computational geometry and combinatorial algorithms; she is known for her work with Mike Paterson on

binary space partitioning In computer science, binary space partitioning (BSP) is a method for space partitioning which recursively subdivides a Euclidean space into two convex sets by using hyperplanes as partitions. This process of subdividing gives rise to a representa ...

, her work with Dan Greene on finite-resolution computational geometry, and her work with Alan Demers and

Scott Shenker Scott J. Shenker (born January 24, 1956) is an American computer scientist, and professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the leader of the Extensible Internet Group at the International Computer Science ...

scheduling algorithm In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning resources to perform tasks. The resources may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The tasks may be threads, processes or data flows. The scheduling activity is carried out by ...

s for energy-efficient

power management Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power ...

. More recently she has been working in

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logy, -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of Adversary (cryptography), ...

. Along with her husband Andrew Yao and Wang Xiaoyun, they found new attacks on the

SHA-1 In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a hash function which takes an input and produces a 160-bit (20-byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexadecimal digits. It was designed by the United States ...

cryptographic hash function..

Selected publications

*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yao, Frances Foong 20th-century American mathematicians 20th-century Chinese mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 21st-century Chinese mathematicians American computer scientists Brown University faculty Chinese emigrants to the United States Chinese women computer scientists Academic staff of the City University of Hong Kong Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni National Taiwan University alumni Researchers in geometric algorithms Scientists at PARC (company) Stanford University Department of Computer Science faculty Academic staff of Tsinghua University University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Year of birth missing (living people)