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Elaine Cohen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Elaine Cohen is an American researcher in geometric modeling and computer graphics, known for her pioneering research on B-splines.[1] She is a professor in the school of computing at the University of Utah.[2]

Education and career

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Cohen graduated from Vassar College in 1968, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. She went to Syracuse University for graduate study in mathematics, earning a master's degree in 1970 and completing her doctorate in 1974.[3] Her dissertation, On the Degree of Approximation of a Function by Partial Sums of its Fourier Series, concerned approximation theory, and was supervised by Daniel Waterman.[4]

At the University of Utah, Cohen became the first woman to gain tenure at the School of Engineering.[5]

Contributions

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With Richard F. Riesenfeld and Gershon Elber, Cohen is the author of the book Geometric Modeling with Splines: An Introduction (AK Peters, 2001).[6]

She has also contributed to the development of the Utah teapot, improving it from a two-dimensional surface with no thickness to a bona-fide three-dimensional object.[7]

Recognition

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In 2005, the YWCA of Salt Lake City gave Cohen their Outstanding Achievement Award.[5] In 2009, Cohen and Riesenfeld were awarded the Pierre Bézier Award of the Solid Modeling Association for their work on B-splines in computer aided geometric design.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Richard Riesenfeld and Elaine Cohen, the 2009 Pierre Bézier Award Recipients, Solid Modeling Association, retrieved 2018-10-27
  2. ^ "Elaine Cohen", Faculty profile, University of Utah, retrieved 2018-10-27
  3. ^ Education, University of Utah, retrieved 2018-10-27
  4. ^ Elaine Cohen at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. ^ a b "YWCA to honor 6 Utah women: Award recipients are hailed for excellence, beating challenges", Deseret News, September 11, 2005
  6. ^ Reviews of Geometric Modeling with Splines:
  7. ^ Piper, Matthew (December 5, 2016), "Whatever happened to ... the ubiquitous digital 'Utah teapot'?", Salt Lake Tribune