Elaine Cohen is an American researcher in

geometric modeling __NOTOC__ Geometric modeling is a branch of applied mathematics and computational geometry that studies methods and algorithms for the mathematical description of shapes. The shapes studied in geometric modeling are mostly two- or three-dimensi ...

and

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

, known for her pioneering research on

B-spline In the mathematical subfield of numerical analysis, a B-spline or basis spline is a spline function that has minimal support with respect to a given degree, smoothness, and domain partition. Any spline function of given degree can be expresse ...

s. She is a professor in the school of computing at the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

Education and career

Cohen graduated from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

in 1968, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. She went to

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 ...

for graduate study in mathematics, earning a master's degree in 1970 and completing her doctorate in 1974. Her dissertation, ''On the Degree of Approximation of a Function by Partial Sums of its Fourier Series'', concerned

approximation theory In mathematics, approximation theory is concerned with how function (mathematics), functions can best be approximation, approximated with simpler functions, and with quantitative property, quantitatively characterization (mathematics), characteri ...

, and was supervised by Daniel Waterman. At the University of Utah, Cohen became the first woman to gain tenure at the School of Engineering.

Contributions

With Richard F. Riesenfeld and Gershon Elber, Cohen is the author of the book ''Geometric Modeling with Splines: An Introduction'' (AK Peters, 2001). She has also contributed to the development of the

Utah teapot The Utah teapot, or the Newell teapot, is a 3D test model that has become a standard reference object and an in-joke within the computer graphics community. It is a mathematical model of an ordinary Melitta-brand teapot that appears solid ...

, improving it from a two-dimensional surface with no thickness to a bona-fide three-dimensional object.

Recognition

In 2005, the

YWCA The Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) is a nonprofit organization with a focus on empowerment, leadership, and rights of women, young women, and girls in more than 100 countries. The World office is currently based in Geneva, Swi ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

gave Cohen their Outstanding Achievement Award. In 2009, Cohen and Riesenfeld were awarded the Pierre Bézier Award of the Solid Modeling Association for their work on B-splines in computer aided geometric design.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Elaine Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists American women computer scientists 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American women mathematicians Vassar College alumni Syracuse University alumni University of Utah faculty 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians Mathematicians from New York (state) 20th-century American women 21st-century American women