Mihai Pătrașcu (17 July 1982 – 5 June 2012) was a

Romanian-American Romanian Americans () are Americans who have Romanian ancestry. According to the 2023 American Community Survey, 425,738 Americans indicated Romanian as their first or second ancestry, however other sources provide higher estimates, which a ...

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 ...

AT&T Labs AT&T Labs, Inc. (formerly AT&T Laboratories, Inc.) is the research & development division of AT&T, the telecommunications company. It employs some 1,800 people in various locations, including: Bedminster, New Jersey; Middletown Township, New J ...

Florham Park, New Jersey Florham Park is a borough in Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 12,585, its highest decennial count ever and an increase of 889 (+7.6%) from the 11,696 recorded at ...

, United States. Pătrașcu attended

Carol I National College The Carol I National College () is a high school located in central Craiova, Romania, on Ioan Maiorescu Street. It is one of the most prestigious secondary education institutions in Romania. Between 1947 and 1997 it operated under the name of Nic ...

Craiova Craiova (, also , ) is the largest city in southwestern Romania, List of Romanian cities, the seventh largest city in the country and the capital of Dolj County, situated near the east bank of the river Jiu River, Jiu in central Oltenia. It i ...

. As a high school student, he won 2 gold medals and 1 silver medal at the

International Olympiad in Informatics The International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI) is an annual competitive programming competition and one of the International Science Olympiads Student competition, for secondary school students. The first IOI was held in 1989 in Pravetz, Bulgar ...

. After attended for one year the

University of Craiova The University of Craiova () is a public university located in Craiova, Romania. It was founded in 1947, initially with four institutes, in the Palace of Justice of Craiova. It is the largest university in the historical Oltenia province of Roma ...

, he completed his

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

and graduate studies in

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, ...

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 ...

. Under the supervision of

Erik Demaine Erik D. Demaine (born February 28, 1981) is a Canadian-American professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former child prodigy. Early life and education Demaine was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to mathe ...

, he defended his MS and PhD theses in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Pătrașcu’s work was concerned with fundamental questions about basic

data structure In computer science, a data structure is a data organization and storage format that is usually chosen for Efficiency, efficient Data access, access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships amo ...

s. He received the

Machtey Award The Machtey Award is awarded at the annual IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) to the author(s) of the best student paper(s). A paper qualifies as a student paper if all authors are full-time students at the date of the submiss ...

for the best student paper at the

Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science The IEEE Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) is an academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science. FOCS is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society. As writes, FOCS and its annual Association for Computing ...

in 2008, and the

Presburger Award The Presburger Award, started in 2010, is awarded each year by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) to "a young scientist for outstanding contributions in theoretical computer science, documented by a published paper o ...

from the

European Association for Theoretical Computer Science 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 2012, for breaking "many old barriers on fundamental data structure problems, not only revitalizing but also revolutionizing a field that was almost silent for over a decade." Mihai Pătrașcu died in 2012 at the age of 29 after suffering from

brain cancer A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign (non-cance ...

for a year and a half, and was buried in his native city,

Selected publications

* Preliminary version published in FOCS 2008, . * * * Preliminary version published in FOCS 2006, . * Preliminary version published in FOCS 2004, . See

Tango tree A tango tree is a type of binary search tree proposed by Erik D. Demaine, Dion Harmon, John Iacono, and Mihai Pătrașcu in 2004. It is named after Buenos Aires, of which the tango is emblematic. It is an online binary search tree that achieves ...

. *

References

External links

Pătrașcu’s blog WebDiarios de Motocicleta

Mihai Pătrașcu Memorial
* 1982 births 2012 deaths People from Craiova Carol I National College alumni Romanian emigrants to the United States MIT School of Engineering alumni Romanian computer scientists Theoretical computer scientists Researchers in geometric algorithms Competitive programmers AT&T people Deaths from brain cancer in New York (state) {{Romania-scientist-stub