Stefan Langerman false Swarzberg is a Belgian

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 ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

whose research topics include

computational geometry Computational geometry is a branch of computer science devoted to the study of algorithms which can be stated in terms of geometry. Some purely geometrical problems arise out of the study of computational geometric algorithms, and such problems ar ...

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, and

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

. He is professor and co-head of the

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

s research group at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) with Jean Cardinal. He is a director of research for the Belgian Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS–FNRS).

Education and career

Langerman left his Belgian secondary school at age 13 and was admitted by examination to the École polytechnique of the Université libre de Bruxelles. He studied

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...

there for two years before switching his course of study to computer science, and earning a

licenciate A licentiate (abbreviated Lic.) is an academic degree present in many countries, representing different educational levels. It may be similar to a master's degree when issued by pontifical universities and other universities in Europe, Latin A ...

. After working as a user interface programmer for the Center for Digital Molecular Biophysics in

Gembloux Gembloux (; wa, Djiblou; nl, Gembloers, ) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Namur, Belgium. On 1 January 2006 the municipality had 21,964 inhabitants. The total area is 95.86 km², yielding a population dens ...

, he moved to the US for graduate study at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's ...

, where he earned a master's degree and then in 2001 a PhD. His doctoral dissertation, ''Algorithms and Data Structures in Computational Geometry'', was supervised by William Steiger. Next, before joining ULB and FNRS, Langerman worked as a postdoctoral researcher at

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...

with computational geometry researchers

Luc Devroye Luc P. Devroye is a Belgian computer scientist and mathematician and a James McGill Professor in the School of Computer Science of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Devroye specializes in the probabilistic analysis of algorithms, r ...

and

Godfried Toussaint Godfried Theodore Patrick Toussaint (1944 – July 2019) was a Canadian computer scientist, a professor of computer science, and the head of the Computer Science Program at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. ...

Research

Langerman's research is primarily in

. Known for novel and often playful results such as "Wrapping the

Mozartkugel A (; English: "Mozart ball"; ) is a small, round sugar confection made of pistachio, marzipan and nougat that is covered with dark chocolate. It was originally known as , created in 1890 by Salzburg confectioner Paul Fürst (1856–1941) and ...

" which earned him the moniker of a computational

chocolatier A chocolatier is a person or company who makes confectionery from chocolate. Chocolatiers are distinct from chocolate makers, who create chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients. Education and training Traditionally, chocolatiers, e ...

, Langerman has made a number of scientific advances in fields as diverse as

musical similarity The notion of musical similarity is particularly complex because there are numerous dimensions of similarity. If similarity takes place between different fragments from one musical piece, a musical similarity implies a repetition of the first occurr ...

polycube upAll 8 one-sided tetracubes – if chirality is ignored, the bottom 2 in grey are considered the same, giving 7 free tetracubes in total A puzzle involving arranging nine L tricubes into a 3×3 cube A polycube is a solid figure formed by j ...

unfolding, computational

archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

, and

protein folding Protein folding is the physical process by which a protein chain is translated to its native three-dimensional structure, typically a "folded" conformation by which the protein becomes biologically functional. Via an expeditious and reproduci ...

. Langerman's work in

s includes the co-invention of the queap and the introduction of the notion of retroactive data structures, a generalization of the concept of a

persistent data structure In computing, a persistent data structure or not ephemeral data structure is a data structure that always preserves the previous version of itself when it is modified. Such data structures are effectively immutable, as their operations do not (v ...

. He is the author or more than 240 publications, and has led scientific missions with other western scientists to collaborate with colleagues in

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

Family

Langerman is also the founder of Langerman SPRL, a Belgian colored-diamond company based on the collection of Langerman's father Arthur Langerman, a dealer of colored diamonds who is also noted as an author and as a collector of anti-semitic posters. He is the co-author with his father of a paper on Morpion solitaire, written jointly with another father-and-son pair,

Martin Demaine Martin L. (Marty) Demaine (born 1942) is an artist and mathematician, the Angelika and Barton Weller artist in residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Demaine attended Medford High School in Medford, Massachusetts. After st ...

and

Erik Demaine Erik D. Demaine (born February 28, 1981) is a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a former child prodigy. Early life and education Demaine was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to artist sculptor Martin ...

. Both Stefan Langerman and his father are members of the Board of Trustees of the Arthur Langerman Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Berlin, which makes its founder’s unique collection of visual antisemitica available for research, educational and exhibition purposes.

Selected publications

References

External links

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Arthur Langerman Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Langerman, Stefan Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Belgian computer scientists Belgian mathematicians Researchers in geometric algorithms Université libre de Bruxelles alumni Université libre de Bruxelles faculty