Dennis Elliot Shasha is an American professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

, a division of

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. He is also an associate director of NYU WIRELESS. His current areas of research include work done with biologists on pattern discovery for

microarrays A microarray is a multiplex lab-on-a-chip. Its purpose is to simultaneously detect the expression of thousands of genes from a sample (e.g. from a tissue). It is a two-dimensional array on a solid substrate—usually a glass slide or silicon ...

combinatorial design Combinatorial design theory is the part of combinatorial mathematics that deals with the existence, construction and properties of systems of finite sets whose arrangements satisfy generalized concepts of ''balance'' and/or ''symmetry''. These co ...

, network inference, and

protein docking Macromolecular docking is the computational modelling of the quaternary structure of complexes formed by two or more interacting biological macromolecules. Protein–protein complexes are the most commonly attempted targets of such modelling, fo ...

; work done with physicists, musicians, and professionals in finance on algorithms for

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. Ex ...

; and work on database applications in untrusted environments. Other areas of interest include database tuning as well as tree and graph matching.

Background

After graduating from

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wor ...

in 1977, he worked for IBM designing circuits and

microcode In processor design, microcode (μcode) is a technique that interposes a layer of computer organization between the central processing unit (CPU) hardware and the programmer-visible instruction set architecture of a computer. Microcode is a la ...

for the IBM 3090. While at IBM, he earned his M.Sc. from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

in 1980. He completed his Ph.D. in applied mathematics at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1984 (thesis advisor: Nat Goodman). Professor Shasha is a prolific author, researcher, tango dancer, climber, and public speaker. He has written six books of puzzles, five of which center on the work of a mathematical detective by the name of Jacob Ecco, a biography about great computer scientists (coauthored by freelance journalist Cathy Lazere), and technical books relating to his various areas of research. In his non-academic writings, perhaps his greatest invention is the notion of omniheuristics, a kind of super-

heuristics A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...

concerned with the ability to solve any and all manner of

puzzles A puzzle is a game, problem, or toy that tests a person's ingenuity or knowledge. In a puzzle, the solver is expected to put pieces together ( or take them apart) in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct or fun solution of the puzzle ...

, conundrums, enigmas, and dilemmas. Owing their decidedly curious character, he has given particular note to puzzles that start off easy, but have apparently innocent variants that are particularly perplexing; he calls them 'upstarts'. Professor Shasha has written monthly puzzle columns for ''

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are intended for readers wi ...

'', ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

'', and '' Dr. Dobb's Journal''. He lives in New York with his wife Karen. In 2013 he became a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

Bibliography

Dr. Ecco mysteries

* ''The Puzzling Adventures of Dr. Ecco'' - (1988, Freeman, and republished in 1998 by Dover) * ''Codes, Puzzles, and Conspiracy'' - (1992, Freeman, republished in 2004 by Dover as ''Dr. Ecco: Mathematical Detective'') * ''Dr. Ecco's Cyberpuzzles'' - (2002, W. W. Norton) * ''Puzzling Adventures'' - (2005, W. W. Norton) * ''The Puzzler's Elusion'' - (2006, Avalon Publishing) * ''Puzzles for Programmers and Pros'' - (2007, Wrox)

Computer science

* ''Out of their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists'' - (1998, Springer) * ''Database Tuning: Principles, Experiments, and Troubleshooting Techniques'' - (2002,

Morgan Kaufmann Morgan Kaufmann Publishers is a Burlington, Massachusetts (San Francisco, California until 2008) based publisher specializing in computer science and engineering content. Since 1984, Morgan Kaufmann has published content on information technology ...

) * ''High Performance Discovery in Time Series: techniques and case studies'' - (2004,

Springer Verlag Springer Science+Business Media, commonly known as Springer, is a German multinational publishing company of books, e-books and peer-reviewed journals in science, humanities, technical and medical (STM) publishing. Originally founded in 1842 i ...

) * ''Natural Computing: DNA, Quantum Bits, and the Future of Smart Machines'' - (2010, W. W. Norton) * ''Statistics is Easy: Case Studies on Real Scientific Datasets'' - (2021, Morgan Claypool) * ''Automated Verification of Concurrent Search Structures'' - (2021, Morgan Claypool)

Historical

* ''Red Blues: Voices from the Last Wave of Russian Immigrants'' - (Holmes & Meier, 2002) * ''Iraq's Last Jews: Stories of Daily Life, Upheaval, and Escape from Modern Babylon'' - (2008, Palgrave Macmillan)

References

External links

Dennis Shasha at the Mathematics Genealogy Project

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shasha, Dennis American computer scientists Recreational mathematicians Mathematics popularizers Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni Living people Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences faculty Scientists from New York City Yale University alumni Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Year of birth missing (living people)