Joan Feigenbaum (born 1958 in Brooklyn, New York) is a theoretical computer scientist with a background in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

. She is the

Grace Murray Hopper Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of com ...

Professor of Computer Science at

Yale University 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 wo ...

. At Yale she also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Economics. Feigenbaum co-invented the computer-security research area of trust management.

Education and career

Feigenbaum did her undergraduate work in Mathematics at

Harvard University 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 ...

. She became interested in computers during the Summer Research Program at AT&T's

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

between her junior and senior years. She then earned a Ph.D. in

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 ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, under the supervision of Andrew Yao, while working summers at Bell Labs. After graduation she joined Bell Labs. She became the Hopper Professor at Yale in 2008.

Family

She is married to Jeffrey Nussbaum. They have a son, Sam Baum. Baum was chosen as child's surname as the greatest common suffix of Feigenbaum and Nussbaum.

Awards and honors

In 1998 Feigenbaum was an Invited Speaker of the

International Congress of Mathematicians The International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) is the largest conference for the topic of mathematics. It meets once every four years, hosted by the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The Fields Medals, the Nevanlinna Prize (to be rename ...

in Berlin. In 2001 she became a fellow 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 ...

for her "foundational and highly influential contributions to cryptographic complexity theory, authorization and trust management, massive-data-stream computation, and algorithmic mechanism design." In 2012 she was named a fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

and, in 2013, a member of the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. The Connecticut Technology Council chose her as a Woman of Innovation in 2012. She acts as one of the three award-committee members on ACM SIGecom test of time award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Feigenbaum, Joan 1958 births American women mathematicians American women computer scientists Living people Theoretical computer scientists Harvard College alumni Stanford University alumni Yale University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery American computer scientists 21st-century American mathematicians 20th-century American mathematicians American women academics 20th-century women mathematicians 21st-century women mathematicians 20th-century American women 21st-century American women