Edelsbrunner named as EATCS fellow

For the first time, the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) has named ten of its members as the recipients of an EATCS fellowship. Among the laureates is IST Austria Professor Herbert Edelsbrunner who, according to the EACTS Fellows Selection Committee, was selected for “his tremendous impact on the field of computational geometry”. The distinction is awarded for outstanding contributions to theoretical computer science.

IST Austria President Thomas Henzinger congratulated Edelsbrunner: “Herbert has continuously been at the pinnacle of his field. His impact is seminal. I am very happy that his peers demonstrate their acknowledgement with this distinction.”

Edelsbrunner joined IST Austria in 2009. A native Austrian, the computer scientist spent most of his career in the USA, teaching and researching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and later at Duke University (North Carolina). The focus of his current research is on computational topology, an area he pioneered and whose methods address the importance of shape and the recognition, matching, and classification of shape from data.

On his homepage Edelsbrunner writes: “My research evolved from algorithms and data structures to computational geometry and computational topology. It might sometimes not be obvious, but I use applications to determine the direction of my research, keeping in mind that the most applicable of all is a good theory.”

The other Austrian named as EATCS fellow is Prof. Monika Henzinger from the University of Vienna.

The European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) is an international organization founded in 1972. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and results among theoretical computer scientists as well as to stimulate cooperation between the theoretical and the practical community in computer science.

For more on the award see the EACTS homepage.