Robert Roy Korfhage (December 2, 1930 – November 20, 1998) was an American computer scientist, famous for his contributions to

information retrieval Information retrieval (IR) in computing and information science is the process of obtaining information system resources that are relevant to an information need from a collection of those resources. Searches can be based on full-text or other co ...

and several textbooks. He was son of Dr. Roy Korfhage who was a chemist at

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other metrics, since ...

Fulton, Oswego County, New York :''There is also a Town of Fulton in Schoharie County, and a Fulton County in New York.'' Fulton is a city in the western part of Oswego County, New York, United States. The population was 11,896 as of the 2010 census. The city is named aft ...

. Korfhage earned his bachelor's degree (1952) in engineering mathematics at

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, while working part-time at

United Aircraft and Transport Corporation The United Aircraft and Transport Corporation was formed in 1929, when William Boeing of Boeing Airplane & Transport Corporation teamed up with Frederick Rentschler of Pratt & Whitney to form a large, vertically-integrated, amalgamated firm, ...

in East Hartford as

programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

. At the same university, he earned a master's degree and

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

(1962) in mathematics, his PhD dissertation being ''On Systems of Distinct Representatives for Several Collections of Sets'' advised by

Bernard Galler Bernard A. Galler ( in Chicago – in Ann Arbor, Michigan) was an American mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Michigan who was involved in the development of large-scale operating systems and computer languages includ ...

(1962). Korfhage taught mathematics at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The university ...

(1962–64),

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and mon ...

(1964–70),

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , pr ...

(1970–86) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences (1986–98). Korfhage's research focused on

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conn ...

and

. For instance, his ''Information Storage and Retrieval'' (1997) was winner of

American Society for Information Science and Technology The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T) is a nonprofit membership organization for information professionals that sponsors an annual conference as well as several serial publications, including the ''Journal of the Asso ...

''Best information science book'' award (1998).Inside ASIS
December 1998 In his later years, he worked on new ways of

information visualization Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

and also

genetic algorithm In computer science and operations research, a genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic inspired by the process of natural selection that belongs to the larger class of evolutionary algorithms (EA). Genetic algorithms are commonly used to gene ...

s to optimize text queries. He died of cancer in

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylv ...

Books

* 1966: ''Logic and Algorithms'', Wiley * 1970: (with

Harley Flanders Harley M. Flanders (September 13, 1925 – July 26, 2013) was an American mathematician, known for several textbooks and contributions to his fields: algebra and algebraic number theory, linear algebra, electrical networks, scientific computing. ...

) ''Calculus'',

Academic Press Academic Press (AP) is an academic book publisher founded in 1941. It was acquired by Harcourt, Brace & World in 1969. Reed Elsevier bought Harcourt in 2000, and Academic Press is now an imprint of Elsevier. Academic Press publishes referen ...

* 1974: (with Harley Flanders and

Justin Jesse Price Justin Jesse Price (1930 – 12 March 2011) was an American mathematician, known for several textbooks and contributions to his field. His Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania was ''I. Some Duality Theorems II. On the Characters ...

) ''A Second Course in Calculus'', Academic Press * 1984: ''Discrete Computational Structures'', Academic Press * 1987: (with Norman E. Gibbs) ''Principles of Data Structures and Algorithms with Pascal'', William C. Brown Publications * 1997: ''Information Storage and Retrieval'', Wiley.

References

American computer scientists University of Michigan alumni Purdue University faculty Southern Methodist University faculty University of Pittsburgh faculty People from Fulton, Oswego County, New York 1930 births 1998 deaths Scientists from New York (state) {{compu-scientist-stub