Lila Kari (née Sântean) is a Romanian and Canadian

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

, professor in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at 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 ...

, Canada.

Biography

Professor Kari earned a master's degree 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 ...

in 1987, studying there with

Gheorghe Păun Gheorghe Păun (; born December 6, 1950, in Cicănești, Argeș County) is a computer scientist from Romania, prominent for work on membrane computing and the P system. Păun studied mathematics at the University of Bucharest, obtaining an MSc. in ...

, and then moved to the

University of Turku sv, Åbo universitet , latin_name = Universitas Aboensis , image_name = University of Turku.svg , motto = ''Vapaan kansan lahja vapaalle tieteelle'' , established = 1920 , type ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

for her graduate studies, earning a Ph.D. in 1991 under the supervision of

Arto Salomaa Arto K. Salomaa (born 6 June 1934) is a Finnish mathematician and computer scientist. His research career, which spans over forty years, is focused on formal languages and automata theory. Early life and education Salomaa was born in Turku, Finl ...

. She came to the

University of Western Ontario The University of Western Ontario (UWO), also known as Western University or Western, is a Public university, public research university in London, Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land, surrounded by resident ...

as a visiting professor in 1993, and by 1996 had been hired there as a tenure-track faculty member.. In 2017 she accepted a position of professor of computer science and University Research Chair at the

Research

Kari's thesis research was in

formal language In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules. The alphabet of a formal language consists of symb ...

theory. In the mid-1990s, inspired by an article by

Leonard Adleman Leonard Adleman (born December 31, 1945) is an American computer scientist. He is one of the creators of the RSA encryption algorithm, for which he received the 2002 Turing Award, often called the Nobel prize of Computer science. He is also kno ...

in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'', she shifted her interests to

DNA computing DNA computing is an emerging branch of unconventional computing which uses DNA, biochemistry, and molecular biology hardware, instead of the traditional electronic computing. Research and development in this area concerns theory, experiments, a ...

. In her research, together with Laura Landweber, she has initiated and explored the study of computational power of DNA processing in

ciliate The ciliates are a group of alveolates characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagellum, eukaryotic flagella, but are in general shorter and present in much larger numbers, with a ...

s, using her expertise to show that the DNA operations performed by

genetic recombination Genetic recombination (also known as genetic reshuffling) is the exchange of genetic material between different organisms which leads to production of offspring with combinations of traits that differ from those found in either parent. In eukaryo ...

in these organisms are

Turing complete Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical com ...

. Her more recent research has studied issues of

nondeterminism Nondeterminism or nondeterministic may refer to: Computer science *Nondeterministic programming *Nondeterministic algorithm *Nondeterministic model of computation **Nondeterministic finite automaton **Nondeterministic Turing machine *Indeterminacy ...

and undecidability in

self-assembly Self-assembly is a process in which a disordered system of pre-existing components forms an organized structure or pattern as a consequence of specific, local interactions among the components themselves, without external direction. When the ...

, as well as studies of

biodiversity informatics Biodiversity informatics is the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information, such as taxonomy, biogeography or ecology. Modern computer techniques can yield new ways to view and analyze existing information, as well as predict ...

, such as proposing alignment-free methods based on Chaos Game Representation of DNA genomic sequences to identify and classify species.

Awards and honors

Kari won the Rolf Nevanlinna doctoral thesis award for the best Finnish mathematics doctoral thesis in 1991. From 2002 to 2011, she held a

Canada Research Chair Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program. Program goals The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...

in Biocomputing.

References

External links

Home page
at University of Waterloo * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kari, Lila Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Canadian computer scientists Romanian emigrants to Canada Canadian people of Romanian descent Romanian computer scientists Canadian women computer scientists Romanian women computer scientists University of Bucharest alumni University of Turku alumni University of Western Ontario faculty University of Waterloo faculty Canada Research Chairs DNA nanotechnology people