Kurt Mehlhorn (born 29 August 1949) is a German theoretical computer scientist. He has been a vice president of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

and is director of the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science.

Education and career

Mehlhorn graduated in 1971 from the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

, where he studied computer science and mathematics, and earned his Ph.D. in 1974 from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

under the supervision of Robert Constable. Since 1975 he has been on the faculty of

Saarland University Saarland University (, ) is a public research university located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It was founded in 1948 in Homburg in co-operation with France and is organized in six faculties that cover all major ...

Saarbrücken Saarbrücken (; Rhenish Franconian: ''Sabrigge'' ; ; ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of cities and towns in Germany, city of the state of Saarland, Germany. Saarbrücken has 181,959 inhabitants and is Saarland's administrative, commerci ...

, Germany, where he was chair of the computer science department from 1976 to 1978 and again from 1987 to 1989. Since 1990 has been the director of the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science, also in Saarbrücken. He has been on the editorial boards of ten journals, a trustee of the

International Computer Science Institute The International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) is an independent, non-profit research organization located in Berkeley, California, United States. Since its founding in 1988, ICSI has maintained an affiliation agreement with the University ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

, and a member of the board of governors of Jacobs University Bremen. He also served on the Engineering and Computer Science jury for the

Infosys Prize The Infosys Prize is an annual award granted to scientists, researchers, engineers and social scientists of Indian origin (not necessarily born in India) by the Infosys Science Foundation and ranks among the highest monetary awards for researc ...

from 2009 to 2011.

Awards and honors

He won the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize in 1986, the Gay-Lussac-Humboldt-Prize in 1989, the Karl Heinz Beckurts Award in 1994, the Konrad Zuse Medal in 1995, the

EATCS Award The European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) is an international organization with a European focus, founded in 1972. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and results among theoretical computer scientists as well as ...

in 2010,Bulletin of the EATCS, nr. 100, pp. 7–8. and the

Paris Kanellakis Award The Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award is granted yearly by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) to honor "specific theoretical accomplishments that have had a significant and demonstrable effect on the practice of computing". It wa ...

in 2010. He was named a member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

in 1995,

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

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 ...

in 1999, a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in 2001, a member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (), in short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded on 1 January 1652, based on academic models in Italy, it was originally named the ''Academi ...

in 2004, a foreign member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 2014, and a foreign member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 2014. He has received honorary doctorates from the Otto von Guericke University of Magdeburg in 2002 and 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 ...

in 2006.Mehlhorn's CV
.

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 ...

br>citation to Mehlhorn
for "important contributions in complexity theory and in the design, analysis, and practice of combinatorial and geometric algorithms." He is the 2014 winner of the Erasmus Medal of the

Research

Mehlhorn is the author of several books and over 250 scientific publications,. which include fundamental contributions to

data structures In computer science, a data structure is a data organization and storage format that is usually chosen for efficient access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, and the functi ...

, computational geometry,

computer algebra In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating expression (mathematics), ...

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

, VLSI design,

computational complexity In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations ...

combinatorial optimization Combinatorial optimization is a subfield of mathematical optimization that consists of finding an optimal object from a finite set of objects, where the set of feasible solutions is discrete or can be reduced to a discrete set. Typical combina ...

, and graph algorithms. Mehlhorn has been an important figure in the development of algorithm engineering and is one of the developers of ''LEDA'', the Library of Efficient Data types and Algorithms. Mehlhorn has played an important role in the establishment of several research centres for computer science in Germany. He was the driving force behind the establishment of a

Max Planck Institute The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. Founded in 1911 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society, it was renamed to the M ...

for Computer Science in Germany, the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science (MPII). Mehlhorn was managing director of the institute and headed the department of algorithms and complexity. He also initiated the research center for computer science at Dagstuhl and the

European Symposium on Algorithms The European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA) is an international conference covering the field of algorithms. It has been held annually since 1993, typically in early Autumn in a different European location each year. Like most theoretical computer ...

Books

*. Revised and translated as ''Data Structures and Algorithms'', Springer-Verlag, 1984. *. *. *. *. *.

Selected publications

*. *. *. *. *. Also available a
Princeton TR-310-91
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehlhorn, Kurt 1949 births Living people German computer scientists Researchers in geometric algorithms Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize winners Academic staff of Saarland University Max Planck Institute for Informatics Technical University of Munich alumni Cornell University alumni Members of Academia Europaea 1999 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Max Planck Society people