Irene Antonia Gargantini (born 1934) is an Italian-Canadian retired

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

numerical analyst Numerical may refer to: * Number * Numerical digit * Numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical ...

, known for her research on

root-finding algorithm In numerical analysis, a root-finding algorithm is an algorithm for finding zeros, also called "roots", of continuous functions. A zero of a function is a number such that . As, generally, the zeros of a function cannot be computed exactly nor ...

s and

quadtree A quadtree is a tree data structure in which each internal node has exactly four children. Quadtrees are the two-dimensional analog of octrees and are most often used to partition a two-dimensional space by recursively subdividing it into four ...

s and

octree An octree is a tree data structure in which each internal node has exactly eight child node, children. Octrees are most often used to partition a three-dimensional space by recursive subdivision, recursively subdividing it into eight Octant (geo ...

s, and in particular for introducing the use of

hash table In computer science, a hash table is a data structure that implements an associative array, also called a dictionary or simply map; an associative array is an abstract data type that maps Unique key, keys to Value (computer science), values. ...

s in place of pointer-based structures for representing quadtrees and octrees. In her retirement as a

professor emerita ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

at the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO; branded as Western University) is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by residential neighbourhoods and the Thame ...

, she has also become a self-published novelist under the pseudonym René Natan.

Early life and education

Gargantini was born in 1934 in

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, the daughter of a railroad engineer. With the encouragement of her parents, she studied physics at the

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

, and after earning a doctorate there, she became a researcher at the university, where her work involved the calculation of electron trajectories in

synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The strength of the magnetic field which bends the particle beam i ...

s, using a computer from the Computer Research Corporation.

Career and later life

She continued her work on computer-assisted physics calculations at the European Atomic Energy Community beginning in 1958, and at

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York ...

in Switzerland beginning in 1965. There, her interests began shifting to the newly established field of

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

. After seeing an announcement in the

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' (''CACM'') is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). History It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are i ...

for a new computer science program at the

in Canada, headed by John Hart (whose research she had used at IBM), she took a faculty position in the program, beginning in 1968. She became department chair from 1986 to 1991, becoming the first female chair of a computer science department in Canada. She retired in 2000.

Selected publications

Gargantini's research publications include:

References

External links

Réne Natan official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gargantini, Irene 1934 births Living people Canadian computer scientists Canadian women computer scientists Numerical analysts University of Milan alumni Academic staff of the University of Western Ontario Scientists from Milan