Professor Sartaj Kumar Sahni (born July 22, 1949, in
Pune
Pune (; ; also known as Poona, (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million ...
, India) is a
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...
based in the United States, and is one of the pioneers in the field of
data structure
In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for efficient access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, a ...
s. He is a distinguished professor in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...
.
Education
Sahni received his
BTech
A Bachelor of Technology (Latin ''Baccalaureus Technologiae'', commonly abbreviated as B.Tech. or BTech; with honours as B.Tech. (Hons.)) is an undergraduate academic degree conferred after the completion of a three to five-year program of studi ...
degree in
electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...
from the
Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
The Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) Hindi: भारतीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान कानपुर) is a public institute of technology located in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India. It was ...
.
Following this, he undertook his graduate studies at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
in the USA, earning a
PhD degree
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 ...
in 1973, under the supervision of
Ellis Horowitz
Ellis Horowitz is an American computer scientist and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). Horowitz is best known for his computer science textbooks on data structures and algor ...
.
Research and publications
Sahni has published over 280 research papers and written 15 textbooks. His research publications are on the design and analysis of efficient
algorithms
In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing c ...
,
data structures
In computer science, a data structure is a data organization, management, and storage format that is usually chosen for efficient access to data. More precisely, a data structure is a collection of data values, the relationships among them, a ...
,
parallel computing
Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different fo ...
, interconnection networks, design automation, and medical algorithms.
With his advisor Ellis Horowitz, Sahni wrote two widely used textbooks, ''Fundamentals of Computer Algorithms'' and ''Fundamentals of Data Structures''. He has also written highly cited research papers on the
NP-complete
In computational complexity theory, a problem is NP-complete when:
# it is a problem for which the correctness of each solution can be verified quickly (namely, in polynomial time) and a brute-force search algorithm can find a solution by tryi ...
ness of
approximately solving certain optimization problems, on
open shop scheduling Open-shop scheduling or open-shop scheduling problem (OSSP) is an optimization problem in computer science and operations research. It is a variant of optimal job scheduling. In a general job-scheduling problem, we are given ''n'' jobs ''J''1, ...
, on
parallel algorithm
In computer science, a parallel algorithm, as opposed to a traditional serial algorithm, is an algorithm which can do multiple operations in a given time. It has been a tradition of computer science to describe serial algorithms in abstract machin ...
s for
matrix multiplication
In mathematics, particularly in linear algebra, matrix multiplication is a binary operation that produces a matrix from two matrices. For matrix multiplication, the number of columns in the first matrix must be equal to the number of rows in the s ...
and their application in
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 conne ...
, and on improved
exponential time
In computer science, the time complexity is the computational complexity that describes the amount of computer time it takes to run an algorithm. Time complexity is commonly estimated by counting the number of elementary operations performed by ...
exact algorithms for the
subset sum problem The subset sum problem (SSP) is a decision problem in computer science. In its most general formulation, there is a multiset S of integers and a target-sum T, and the question is to decide whether any subset of the integers sum to precisely T''.'' T ...
, among his many other research results.
Awards and honors
In 1997, Sahni was awarded the
IEEE Computer Society
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...
's
Taylor L. Booth Education Award and in 2003 he was awarded the IEEE Computer Society
McDowell Award
The W. Wallace McDowell Award is awarded by the IEEE Computer Society for outstanding theoretical, design, educational, practical, or related innovative contributions that fall within the scope of Computer Society interest. This is the highest te ...
. Sahni was also awarded the 2003 Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award of the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
.
Prof. Sahni is a member of the European Academy of Sciences. He was elected as a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of the
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
in 1988, and of the
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...
in 1996; he is also a fellow of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
, elected in 1995. He is a Distinguished Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.
[Distinguished Alumnus Awards-2000](_blank)
IIT Kanpur, accessed 2011-10-10.
Sahni was given the Honorary Professor Award of
Asia University (Taiwan)
Asia University (AU; ), formerly Taichung Health and Management College (), is a private university in Taichung, Taiwan. Founded in 2001, it offers education for degrees in health and medical science, computer science and electrical engineering, ...
in 2009.
Volunteer activities
He is serving as editor-in-chief of ACM Computing Surveys.
https://csur.acm.org/editorial.cfm
References
External links
Sartaj K. Sahni home page
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sahni, Sartaj
1949 births
Living people
IIT Kanpur alumni
Cornell University alumni
Indian computer scientists
American computer scientists
Theoretical computer scientists
Computer science writers
Indian emigrants to the United States
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Fellow Members of the IEEE
University of Florida faculty