Mark Giesbrecht is a Canadian computer scientist who is the 12th dean of the
University of Waterloo’s
Faculty of Mathematics
In contemporary education, mathematics education, known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics – is the practice of teaching, learning and carrying out scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical knowledge.
Although re ...
, starting from July 1, 2020. He was the Director of the
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science is a professional school within the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of WaterlooQS World University Rankingsranked the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 24th in the world, 10th ...
at the University of Waterloo, Canada from July 2014 until June 2020.
Biography
Giesbrecht earned a PhD in computer science at the
University of Toronto in 1993, under the supervision of
Joachim von zur Gathen
Joachim von zur Gathen (born 1950) is a German and computer scientist. His research spans several areas in mathematics and computer science, including Computational complexity theory, computational complexity, cryptography, finite fields, and com ...
. He has been a professor at the
University of Waterloo since 2001, following positions at the
University of Manitoba (1994–98) and
University of Western Ontario (1998–2001), as well as IBM Canada Ltd. (1991–93). He was the Director of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at Waterloo from July 2014 until June 2020. On July 1, 2020, he became the Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics at the
University of Waterloo.
Research
Giesbrecht’s research is in
computer algebra
In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expressions ...
, where he has proved a number of fundamental results, including on the complexity of computing matrix normal forms, solving sparse diophantine linear systems, and non-commutative polynomial algebra. More recently he has been on the forefront of an optimization approach to symbolic-numeric algorithms for matrix polynomials.
Awards
As a member of the Cheriton School of Computer Science's Symbolic Computation Group, Giesbrecht shared th
2004 NSERC Synergy prize for innovationunder the prize's small- and medium-sized companies category. In 2012 he was named an ACM Distinguished Scientist.
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Giesbrecht, Mark
Canadian computer scientists
Academic staff of the University of Waterloo
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)