Lenore Jennifer Cowen is an American mathematician and computer scientist known for her work in

graph coloring In graph theory, graph coloring is a methodic assignment of labels traditionally called "colors" to elements of a Graph (discrete mathematics), graph. The assignment is subject to certain constraints, such as that no two adjacent elements have th ...

network routing Routing is the process of selecting a path for traffic in a network or between or across multiple networks. Broadly, routing is performed in many types of networks, including circuit-switched networks, such as the public switched telephone netw ...

, and

computational biology Computational biology refers to the use of techniques in computer science, data analysis, mathematical modeling and Computer simulation, computational simulations to understand biological systems and relationships. An intersection of computer sci ...

. She is a professor of computer science and (by courtesy) of mathematics at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university in Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts, United States, with additional facilities in Boston and Grafton, as well as Talloires, France. Tufts also has several Doctor of Physical Therapy p ...

Early life and education

Cowen is the daughter of Robert Cowen, a professor of mathematics at

Queens College, City University of New York Queens College (QC) is a public college in the New York City borough of Queens. Part of the City University of New York system, Queens College occupies an campus primarily located in Flushing. Queens College was established in 1937 and offe ...

, and Ilsa Cowen, a high school English teacher. She has been a classical violin player since the age of five, and as a student at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in

Bayside, Queens Bayside is a neighborhood located in the New York City borough of Queens. It is bounded by Whitestone to the northwest, the Long Island Sound and Little Neck Bay to the northeast, Douglaston to the east, Oakland Gardens to the south, and Fr ...

, she edited the school poetry magazine. However, despite these other interests, she decided to aim for a mathematical career after attending a summer mathematics program for high school students, the

Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics The Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics (HCSSiM) is an American residential program for mathematically talented high school students. The program has been conducted each summer since 1971, with the exceptions of 1981 and 1996, and has ...

. She started her studies at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

at age 16, and graduated in 1987 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, also winning the university's deForest Prize as the top graduate in mathematics that year. She went to 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 ...

for graduate study in applied mathematics, completing her Ph.D. in 1993 with a dissertation ''On Local Representations of Graphs and Networks'' supervised by

Daniel Kleitman Daniel J. Kleitman (born October 4, 1934)article availableon Douglas West (mathematician), Douglas West's web page, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)."Kleitman, Daniel J.," in: ''Who's Who in Frontier Science and Technology'', 1, 1984, ...

Career

After postdoctoral research at

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

and the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

, Cowen joined the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

faculty in 1994 as an assistant professor of mathematical sciences. She moved to the computer science department of

in 2000, added a joint appointment in mathematics in 2004, and was promoted to full professor at Tufts in 2009. In 2020 she became the principal investigator for the newly formed Tufts Center for Transdisciplinary Research in Principles Of Data Science (T-TRIPODS).

Recognition

In 2020, the Education Committee of the

Computing Research Association The Computing Research Association (CRA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit association of North American academic departments of computer science, computer engineering, and related fields; laboratories and centers in industry, government, and academia enga ...

gave Cowen their CRA-E Undergraduate Research Faculty Mentoring Award, for her work with undergraduates at Tufts on interdisciplinary methods in computational biology and data science. She was elected to the 2023 Class of

SIAM Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

Fellows.

References

External links

Home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cowen, Lenore Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women computer scientists American computer scientists Yale College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Johns Hopkins University faculty Tufts University faculty 20th-century American women mathematicians 21st-century American women mathematicians