Norman Saul Matloff (born December 16, 1948) is an American professor of
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 ...
at the
University of California, Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...
.
Early life
Norman Saul Matloff was born on December 16, 1948. Matloff received his
Doctor of Philosophy
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...
degree in 1975 from the mathematics department at the
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
under the supervision of
Thomas M. Liggett.
His dissertation was titled ''Equilibrium Behavior in an Infinite Voting Model''.
Career
Matloff is the author of several books on computer science, statistics and programming, including
* The Art of R Programming
* The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD and Eclipse
* Parallel Computing for Data Science: With Examples in R, C++ and Cuda
* Fast Lane to Python: A Quick, Sensible Route to the Joys of Python Coding
* Probability and Statistics for Data Science: Math + R + Data
* Statistical Regression and Classification: From Linear Models to Machine Learning
* Regression and Classification in R: A Careful, Thus Practical View
Matloff is also the author of many articles concerning machine learning, parallel computing and recommender systems. His just under 2000 citations amount to an h-index of 22.
Matloff also writes
blog He views the increased use of
H-1B visa
The H-1B is a visa in the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act, section 101(a)(15)(H) that allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. A specialty occupation requires the application of ...
s in the high technology field as an unnecessary practice that harms the prospects of Americans in the field, and was featured in local American media on this topic. Gawker published an article on him "UC professor injects racism into H-1B debate"
Matloff previously served as the Editor in Chief of the
R Journal.
He is the author of several software packages for the programming language
R and holds a conservative view of R's development, discouraging premature exposure of students to the newer
Tidyverse
The tidyverse is a collection of open source packages for the R programming language introduced by Hadley Wickham and his team that "share an underlying design philosophy, grammar, and data structures" of tidy data. Characteristic features of tidy ...
dialect of R. His views are supported by other academic teachers of the R language including Holger K. von Juanne-Diedrich, Jasper McChesney and a few others. However, academic debate contains many arguments for the use of Tidyverse
and the dialect has won over most certifications in R.
Awards
In 2002, together with two colleagues, he was awarded the annual Distinguished Public Service Awards at UC Davis.
"Matloff has testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on immigration issues and has served as an expert witness in age-discrimination lawsuits. He has advised federal and state agencies, including the U.S. departments of Commerce and State and the White House, on employment issues. He has served on a number of panels and committees on computer-industry hiring practices sponsored by industry, academia, government and public interest groups."
Bibliography
* 1988: ''Probability Modeling and Computer Simulation: An Integrated Introduction With Applications to Engineering and Computer Science (Duxbury Series)'' (Wadsworth)
* 1992: ''IBM Microcomputer Architecture and Assembly Language: A Look Under The Hood'' (
Prentice Hall
Prentice Hall was an American major educational publisher owned by Savvas Learning Company. Prentice Hall publishes print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market, and distributes its technical titles through the Safari B ...
)
* 2007: ''The Art of Debugging With Gdb/Ddd: For Professionals and Students'' (
No Starch Press
No Starch Press is an American publishing company, specializing in technical literature often geared towards the geek, hacker, and DIY subcultures. Popular titles include '' Hacking: The Art of Exploitation'', Andrew Huang's ''Hacking the Xbox' ...
)
* 2011: ''The Art of R Programming'' (
No Starch Press
No Starch Press is an American publishing company, specializing in technical literature often geared towards the geek, hacker, and DIY subcultures. Popular titles include '' Hacking: The Art of Exploitation'', Andrew Huang's ''Hacking the Xbox' ...
)
References
*
NEXT@CNN Matloff interviewed on subject of H1-B and immigration of technology workers 28 September 2003
1998-2002
*
ttps://gawker.com/386313/uc-professor-injects-racism-into-h-1b-debate: "UC professor injects racism into H-1B debate" 2008
External links
UC Davis: Faculty profile*
Upon Closer Inspection' (Matloff blog)
*
' (Gawker)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Matloff, Norman
Living people
1948 births
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
University of California, Davis faculty
American whistleblowers
People from Los Angeles
Activists from California
R (programming language) people