Zehra Meral Özsoyoglu is a Turkish-American computer scientist specializing in

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

s, including research on

query language A query language, also known as data query language or database query language (DQL), is a computer language used to make queries in databases and information systems. In database systems, query languages rely on strict theory to retrieve informa ...

database model A database model is a type of data model that determines the logical structure of a database. It fundamentally determines in which manner data can be stored, organized and manipulated. The most popular example of a database model is the relatio ...

, and

indexes Index (: indexes or indices) may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Index (A Certain Magical Index), Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index'' * The Index, a ...

, and applications of databases in science,

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

, and

medical informatics Health informatics combines communications, information technology (IT), and health care to enhance patient care and is at the forefront of the medical technological revolution. It can be viewed as a branch of engineering and applied science. ...

. She is the Andrew R. Jennings Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

Education and career

Özsoyoglu earned bachelor's and master's degrees from

Middle East Technical University Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish language, Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a prestigious public university, public Institute of technology, technical university located in Ankara, ...

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

before moving to the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta (also known as U of A or UAlberta, ) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, t ...

Edmonton, Canada Edmonton is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region, and is in Treaty 6 terri ...

for her doctoral studies. Her 1980 dissertation, ''Distributed Database Query Optimization Using Semi-Joins'', was supervised by Clement T. Yu. She was one of the authors of the GYO algorithm to test acyclicity of

hypergraph In mathematics, a hypergraph is a generalization of a Graph (discrete mathematics), graph in which an graph theory, edge can join any number of vertex (graph theory), vertices. In contrast, in an ordinary graph, an edge connects exactly two vert ...

s. She joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve University in 1980, becoming the first female faculty member in her department and the second in the engineering school. She also became the first female chair of her department. She was

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

for ''

ACM Transactions on Database Systems The ''ACM Transactions on Database Systems'' (''ACM TODS'') is one of the journals produced by the Association for Computing Machinery. ''TODS'' publishes one volume yearly. Each volume has four issues, which appear in March, June, September and ...

'' from 2007 to 2014, the first female editor-in-chief of the journal, and the editor-in-chief of the ''Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment'' for 2011–2012. She has also served as program chair for four database conferences.

Recognition

Özsoyoglu was named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2011 "for contributions to database management systems". In 2018 she won the 2018 ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award "for dedicated service to the database community". The award cited her service as

for ''

'' and the ''Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment'' and as program committee chair for the VLDB conference and the

Symposium on Principles of Database Systems The ACM Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS) is an international research conference on database theory, and has been held yearly since 1982. It is sponsored by three Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Com ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ozsoyoglu, Meral Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American academics of Turkish descent American computer scientists Turkish women computer scientists Turkish computer scientists Database researchers Middle East Technical University alumni University of Alberta alumni Case Western Reserve University faculty