Collette René Coullard is an American mathematician,

industrial engineer Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information a ...

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

er, and

matroid In combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid axiomatically, the most significant being ...

theorist known for her research on

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 combi ...

problems that combine

facility location Facility location is a name given to several different problems in computer science and in game theory: * Facility location problem, the optimal placement of facilities as a function of transportation costs and other factors * Facility location (co ...

and

stock management Field inventory management commonly known as inventory management is the function of understanding the stock mix of a company and the different demands on that stock. The demands are influenced by both external and internal factors and are balan ...

. Formerly a professor at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

, and

Lake Superior State University Lake Superior State University (colloquially Lake State, Lake Superior State, Soo Tech, and LSSU) is a public college in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It is enrolls approximately 2,000 students. Due to its proximity to the Canadian border, and the ...

, she has retired to become a

professor emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

Education and career

Coullard graduated in 1980 from

, and earned her Ph.D. in 1985 from

. Her dissertation, ''Minors of 3-Connected Matroids and Adjoints of Binary Matroids'', concerned

matroid theory In combinatorics, a branch of mathematics, a matroid is a structure that abstracts and generalizes the notion of linear independence in vector spaces. There are many equivalent ways to define a matroid axiomatically, the most significant being in ...

and was supervised by

Robert E. Bixby Robert L. Bixby is the Executive Director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan grassroots organization that educates the public about fiscal responsibility. The Coalition was founded in 1992, and Bixby was named the Executive Director in 19 ...

. She taught at

and the

before returning to Northwestern as a faculty member in 1990, and retired as a mathematics professor from Lake Superior State University in 2018. She has also visited the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

as a

Humboldt Fellow The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (german: Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung) is a foundation established by the German government, government of the Federal Republic of Germany and funded by the Foreign Office (Germany), Federal Foreign Office, ...

Recognition

Coullard was a Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University from 1996 to 1999. In 2003, the Lake Superior State University Alumni Association gave her their annual Kenneth J. Shouldice Achievement Award.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Coullard, Collette Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 20th-century American women mathematicians Operations researchers Northwestern University alumni Purdue University alumni Northwestern University faculty Lake Superior State University faculty 21st-century American women mathematicians