Nancy Davis Griffeth (born October 26, 1945) is an American

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 ...

notable for approaches to the feature interaction problem. In 2014, she is a professor at

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in New York City, United States. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, it became an independent college in 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehman, a former New York governor, United ...

of The

City University of New York The City University of New York (CUNY, pronounced , ) is the Public university, public university system of Education in New York City, New York City. It is the largest urban university system in the United States, comprising 25 campuses: eleven ...

and is modelling biological systems in

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 ...

Early life

Griffeth was born in

Oak Park, Illinois Oak Park is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States, adjacent to Chicago. It is the List of municipalities in Illinois, 26th-most populous municipality in Illinois, with a population of 54,318 as of the 2020 census. Oak Park was first se ...

and lived in

Laurel, Mississippi Laurel is a city in and the second county seat of Jones County, Mississippi, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 17,161. Laurel is northeast of Ellisville, the first county seat, which contains the first county ...

and

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. Situated along the Mississippi River, it had a population of 633,104 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Tenne ...

as a child. She received a bachelor's degree from

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 ...

, a master's degree from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

, and a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

Career

Griffeth did seminal work in the feature interaction problem as a founding organizer of the feature interaction workshops and co-author of one of the most cited papers in feature interactions, "A Feature Interaction Benchmark for IN and Beyond." The feature interaction problem is a software problem that arises when one feature ''interacts'' with another in such a way that it changes what the feature does. This can cause serious issues for developers and users of the software. The problem was first documented as features were added to telecommunications systems. If new features on a telecommunications network were either undetected or unwanted, they could cause confusion and dissatisfaction among customers if not handled properly. Griffeth also researched the related problem of how to test networks to see how well they work together, called "interoperability". She worked at the ''Next Generation Networking Lab'' at

Lucent Technologies Lucent Technologies, Inc. was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications equipment company headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was established on September 30, 1996, through the div ...

where she designed and built tools to test interoperability of Voice-over-IP networks, which included conformance testing for MeGaCo media gateways and controllers. For this purpose, she also researched how to model protocols. In addition, she studied virtual node layers regarding Mobile Ad Hoc Networks or MANETs. In the 1990s, she patented methods to protect databases against hackers trying to deduce confidential attributes. Her research has included distributed databases, simulations, concurrency and recovery controls, database design issues, performance modeling, and other issues.Constantinos Djouvas, Nancy D. Griffeth, Nancy A. Lynch. "Testing Self-Similar Networks," electronically published in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 2006

Teaching

From 2010 to 2014 Griffeth directe
workshops on computational biology
funded by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

Expedition in Computing "Computational Modeling and Analysis of Complex Systems." Seventy-eight undergraduate students were trained in computational biology methods and tools and executed research projects on

atrial fibrillation Atrial fibrillation (AF, AFib or A-fib) is an Heart arrhythmia, abnormal heart rhythm (arrhythmia) characterized by fibrillation, rapid and irregular beating of the Atrium (heart), atrial chambers of the heart. It often begins as short periods ...

and

pancreatic cancer Pancreatic cancer arises when cell (biology), cells in the pancreas, a glandular organ behind the stomach, begin to multiply out of control and form a Neoplasm, mass. These cancerous cells have the malignant, ability to invade other parts of ...

Awards

Griffeth received the ''Top 100 Women in Computing'' award from

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American education science company that provides educational content, software, and services for students and educators across various levels—from K-12 to higher education and professional settings. They produce textbooks, ...

in 1995 for her work in feature interactions in telecommunications systems,

distributed systems Distributed computing is a field of computer science that studies distributed systems, defined as computer systems whose inter-communicating components are located on different computer network, networked computers. The components of a distribu ...

, and

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

s. She received awards in 2007 and 2008 from

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

for work on ad hoc networks.Award Recipients, Cisco System

Accessed Jan. 5, 2014

Personal life

Griffeth married engineer and author Bill Griffeth and is the mother of American rugby athlete Valerie Griffeth, and the professor of mathematics at Chile's

University of Talca A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Un ...

, Dr. Stephen Griffeth.

References

External links

Nancy Griffeth at Lehman College

2014 NSF-CMACS Workshop on Cellular Signaling Pathways
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Griffeth, Nancy Davis 1945 births People from Laurel, Mississippi Living people Harvard University alumni Radcliffe College alumni Michigan State University alumni University of Chicago alumni Lehman College faculty American women computer scientists American computer scientists 21st-century American women