Ross A. Overbeek (born May 16, 1949) is an American computer scientist with a long tenure at the Argonne National Laboratory. He has made important contributions to

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...

and genomics, as well as programming, particularly in

database theory Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems. Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...

and the programming language

Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily ...

Early life

He grew up in

Traverse City, Michigan Traverse City ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Grand Traverse County, although a small portion extends into Leelanau County. It is the largest city in the 21-county Northern Michigan region. The population wa ...

where he struck up a lifelong friendship with R. W. Bradford, publisher of the libertarian periodical ''Liberty''. He received a B.Ph. from Grand Valley State College, an M.S. from Pennsylvania State University in 1970, and a Ph.D. in computer science from Penn State in 1971. For the next 11 years he was a computer science professor at

Northern Illinois University Northern Illinois University (NIU) is a public research university in DeKalb, Illinois. It was founded as Northern Illinois State Normal School on May 22, 1895, by Illinois Governor John P. Altgeld as part of an expansion of the state's system ...

Career

In the early 1970s a theorem prover named AURA, for ''AUtomated Reasoning Assistant'', developed by Overbeek replaced one that had been the standard in the field. In 1983 he joined the Mathematics and Computer Science Division of Argonne National Laboratory, working on

automated theorem proving Automated theorem proving (also known as ATP or automated deduction) is a subfield of automated reasoning and mathematical logic dealing with proving mathematical theorems by computer programs. Automated reasoning over mathematical proof was a ma ...

, logic programming, and parallel computation. In the 1980s he became interested in applying logic programming to molecular biology, and he was appointed to the Joint Information Task Force, a working group established to advise the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

and

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

on the computational requirements of the Human Genome Initiative. He has helped develop multiple genomic databases including PUMA, WIT, ERGO, and SEED. In 1998, Overbeek was one of several scientists who co-founded the company Integrated Genomics, Inc. with CEO Michael Fonstein. The company makes the ERGO database and analytics system. In 2003, he co-founded the Fellowship for Interpretation of Genomes (FIG), a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

that coordinates the development of bioinformatics tools and comparative genomics research. In 2004, the FIG partnered with the Computation Institute, a joint Argonne Lab and

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

institution, to establish the National Microbial Pathogen Data Resource Center with an $18 million federal grant.

Published works

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References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Overbeek, Ross 1949 births Living people American computer scientists American geneticists 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Argonne National Laboratory people Pennsylvania State University alumni People from Traverse City, Michigan American male writers