Joyce Barbara Friedman (1928 – November 28, 2018) was an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

operations research Operations research () (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a branch of applied mathematics that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve management and ...

er,

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

computational linguist Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics ...

who worked as a professor at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

and

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

and served as president of the

Association for Computational Linguistics The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) is a scientific and professional organization for people working on natural language processing. Its namesake conference is one of the primary high impact conferences for natural language proce ...

Early life and education

Friedman was born in 1928. She was a Durant Scholar at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...

, from which she graduated in 1949, and earned a master's degree at

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

in 1952. In the same year she moved from the Logistics Research Project at

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

to the US Department of Defense, later working at a succession of defense contractors: ACF Industries (where she worked with Sheldon Akers on production scheduling), Tech. Operations, Inc., and the

Mitre Corporation The Mitre Corporation (stylized as The MITRE Corporation and MITRE) is an American not-for-profit organization with dual headquarters in Bedford, Massachusetts, and McLean, Virginia. It manages federally funded research and development centers ...

. Returning to graduate study at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, her interests shifted from

automated reasoning In computer science, in particular in knowledge representation and reasoning and metalogic, the area of automated reasoning is dedicated to understanding different aspects of reasoning. The study of automated reasoning helps produce computer progr ...

. She completed her Ph.D. in 1965, supervised by Hao Wang, with the dissertation ''A New Decision Procedure in Logic with a Computer Realization'', concerning computational methods in

first-order logic First-order logic, also called predicate logic, predicate calculus, or quantificational logic, is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantified variables over ...

Academic career and later life

Friedman worked as an assistant professor at

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 ...

from 1965 until 1968, when she moved to the

as an associate professor of computer and communications sciences. At Michigan, she was promoted to full professor in 1971. She moved to

as chair of computer science in 1983. Even before completing her doctorate, Friedman had worked at Mitre as a programmer for Donald E. Walker on a project for the US Air Force involving the development of programs that could answer English-language questions. As an academic, her research largely concentrated on

computational linguistics Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field concerned with the computational modelling of natural language, as well as the study of appropriate computational approaches to linguistic questions. In general, computational linguistics ...

and

formal grammar A formal grammar is a set of Terminal and nonterminal symbols, symbols and the Production (computer science), production rules for rewriting some of them into every possible string of a formal language over an Alphabet (formal languages), alphabe ...

s; she served as president of the

in 1971. Some of her work on

transformational grammar In linguistics, transformational grammar (TG) or transformational-generative grammar (TGG) was the earliest model of grammar proposed within the research tradition of generative grammar. Like current generative theories, it treated grammar as a sys ...

was described in her 1971 book, ''A Computational Model of Transformational Grammar''. She has over 180 academic descendants through three of her doctoral students: C. Raymond Perrault,

Remko Scha Remko Jan Hendrik Scha (15 September 1945 – 9 November 2015) was a professor of computational linguistics at the faculty of humanities and Institute for Logic, Language and Computation at the University of Amsterdam. He made important contribution ...

, and David S. Warren. She died on November 28, 2018, in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is a suburb in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, located directly across the Charles River from Boston. The city's population as of the 2020 United States census, ...

Recognition

Friedman was named a Fellow 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 1986.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Friedman, Joyce 1928 births 2018 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians American computer scientists American women computer scientists Computational linguistics researchers American operations researchers Wellesley College alumni Radcliffe College alumni Harvard University alumni Stanford University faculty University of Michigan faculty Boston University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 21st-century American women Presidents of the Association for Computational Linguistics 20th-century American women mathematicians