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

. 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, ...

East Hartford East Hartford is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 51,045 at the 2020 census. The town is located on the east bank of the Connecticut River, directly across from Hartford, Connecticut. It is home to aerospac ...

as programmer. 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 includi ...

(1962). Korfhage taught mathematics at North Carolina State 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 mone ...

(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 , ...

(1970–86) and the

University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences The University of Pittsburgh's School of Computing and Information is one of the 17 schools and colleges of University of Pittsburgh located on the university's main campus in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The sch ...

(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 information retrieval. 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, a ...

and also genetic algorithms to optimize text queries. He died of

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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 Pennsylva ...

Books

* 1966: ''Logic and Algorithms'',

Wiley Wiley may refer to: Locations * Wiley, Colorado, a U.S. town * Wiley, Pleasants County, West Virginia, U.S. * Wiley-Kaserne, a district of the city of Neu-Ulm, Germany People * Wiley (musician), British grime MC, rapper, and producer * Wiley Mil ...

* 1970: (with Harley Flanders) ''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) ''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