Michael Henry Albert (born September 20, 1962) is a mathematician and computer scientist, originally from
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and currently a professor in the computer science department at the
University of Otago in
Dunedin
Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. His varied research interests include
combinatorics
Combinatorics is an area of mathematics primarily concerned with counting, both as a means and an end in obtaining results, and certain properties of finite structures. It is closely related to many other areas of mathematics and has many appl ...
and
combinatorial game theory.
Education and career
Albert received his
B.Math in 1981 from the
University of Waterloo. In that year Albert received the
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.
Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
, and he completed his
D. Phil.
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 a ...
in 1984 at the
University of Oxford
, mottoeng = The Lord is my light
, established =
, endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019)
, budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20)
, chancellor ...
.
He then returned to the University of Waterloo. From 1987 to 1996 he was a professor at
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
. Albert has been at the University of Otago since 1998.
Contributions
Together with J.P. Grossman and Richard Nowakowski, Albert invented the game
Clobber
Clobber is an abstract strategy game invented in 2001 by combinatorial game theorists Michael H. Albert, J.P. Grossman and Richard Nowakowski. It has subsequently been studied by Elwyn Berlekamp and Erik Demaine among others. Since 2005, it has ...
.
Getting Clobbered
' article at ''Science News
''Science News (SN)'' is an American bi-weekly magazine devoted to articles about new scientific and technical developments, typically gleaned from recent scientific and technical journals.
History
''Science News'' has been published since 1 ...
'' Albert has also contributed to the
Combinatorial Game Suite game analysis software, and is a coauthor of ''Lessons in Play: An Introduction to Combinatorial Game Theory''.
Another significant topic of his research has been
permutation patterns.
See also
*
List of University of Waterloo people
References
External links
Michael H. Albert's page at the University of Otago
{{DEFAULTSORT:Albert, Michael H.
Living people
1962 births
20th-century Canadian mathematicians
21st-century Canadian mathematicians
Canadian computer scientists
Canadian expatriates in New Zealand
Canadian Rhodes Scholars
People from Penetanguishene
Combinatorial game theorists
Academic staff of the University of Otago
University of Waterloo alumni