Ileana Streinu is a Romanian-American computer scientist and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

, the Charles N. Clark Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics at Smith College in

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.Curriculum vitae
retrieved 2012-03-06. She is known for her research in computational geometry, and in particular for her work on kinematics and

structural rigidity In discrete geometry and mechanics, structural rigidity is a combinatorial theory for predicting the flexibility of ensembles formed by rigid bodies connected by flexible linkages or hinges. Definitions Rigidity is the property of a struct ...

Biography

Streinu did her undergraduate studies at the

University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...

. She earned two doctorates in 1994, one in mathematics and computer science from the University of Bucharest under the supervision of

Solomon Marcus Solomon Marcus (; 1 March 1925 – 17 March 2016) was a Romanian mathematician, member of the Mathematical Section of the Romanian Academy (full member from 2001) and emeritus professor of the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Mathematics. H ...

and one in computer science from

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

under the supervision of William L. Steiger. She joined the Smith computer science department in 1994, was given a joint appointment in mathematics in 2005, and became the Charles N. Clark Professor in 2009. She also holds an adjunct professorship in the computer science department at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst, UMass) is a public research university in Amherst, Massachusetts and the sole public land-grant university in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Founded in 1863 as an agricultural college, ...

. At Smith, Streinu is director of the Biomathematical Sciences Concentration and has been the co-PI on a million-dollar grant shared between four schools to support this activity.

Awards and honors

In 2006, Streinu won the

Grigore Moisil Grigore Constantin Moisil (; 10 January 1906 – 21 May 1973) was a Romanian mathematician, computer pioneer, and titular member of the Romanian Academy. His research was mainly in the fields of mathematical logic ( Łukasiewicz–Moisil algebra ...

Award of the

Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its byl ...

for her work with Ciprian Borcea using

complex Complex commonly refers to: * Complexity, the behaviour of a system whose components interact in multiple ways so possible interactions are difficult to describe ** Complex system, a system composed of many components which may interact with each ...

algebraic geometry to show that every minimally rigid graph with fixed edge lengths has at most 4^''n'' different embeddings into the Euclidean plane, where ''n'' denotes the number of distinct vertices of the graph. In 2010, Streinu won the David P. Robbins Prize of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

for her combinatorial solution to the carpenter's rule problem. In this problem, one is given an arbitrary

simple polygon In geometry, a simple polygon is a polygon that does not intersect itself and has no holes. That is, it is a flat shape consisting of straight, non-intersecting line segments or "sides" that are joined pairwise to form a single closed path. If ...

with flexible vertices and rigid edges, and must show that it can be manipulated into a convex shape without ever introducing any self-crossings. Streinu's solution augments the input to form a pointed pseudotriangulation, removes one convex hull edge from this graph, and shows that this edge removal provides a single

degree of freedom Degrees of freedom (often abbreviated df or DOF) refers to the number of independent variables or parameters of a thermodynamic system. In various scientific fields, the word "freedom" is used to describe the limits to which physical movement or ...

allowing the polygon to be made more convex one step at a time. In 2012 she became a fellow of the

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2013-08-05.

Selected publications

*. *.

References

External links

Web site
at Smith College {{DEFAULTSORT:Streinu, Ileana Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American computer scientists Romanian emigrants to the United States 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Romanian computer scientists Romanian women computer scientists 20th-century Romanian mathematicians American women computer scientists American women mathematicians University of Bucharest alumni Rutgers University alumni Smith College faculty Researchers in geometric algorithms Fellows of the American Mathematical Society 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 21st-century Romanian mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women