Dana S. Richards

Summary

Dana S. Richards is a writer, mathematics popularizer and Associate Professor in Computer Science at George Mason University.

Dana S. Richards
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Virginia
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
InstitutionsGeorge Mason University
University of Virginia

His research interests include comparisons of protein sequences, Steiner tree algorithms,[1] information dissemination in networks, parallel heuristics, methodology for computationally intractable problems and parallel algorithms for median filters.[2] He is the longtime bibliographer of polymath Martin Gardner.[3]

Education and career edit

Richards received an M.S. from the University of Virginia in 1976[4] and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign under Chung Laung Liu in 1984.[5]

He was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Virginia,[4] and a Program Director of Theory of Computing at the National Science Foundation (June 1993 through May 1994).[6]

He has written or edited seven books[7] and numerous journal articles.[8] In addition, he is a reviewer for many journals, and has received numerous research awards. He became an Associate Professor of Computer Science at George Mason University in 1994.[4]

Martin Gardner edit

Dana Richards was a friend of Martin Gardner going back to the 1970s,[9][10][11][12] and in his writing and speaking he often memorialized and popularized Gardner's work.[13][14] In 2006 he edited The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems which collected all of Gardner's short puzzles in one volume.[15] He wrote Gardner's obituary in Science[16] and in 2023 he published a comprehensive bibliography of Gardner's works.[3]

Since Gardner's death in 2010 events called Celebration of Mind are held every October which include games, magic and puzzles in the Gardner tradition, and Richards is frequently featured at these events discussing Gardner's life and work.[17]

Books edit

  • The Bibliography of Martin Gardner, June, 2023[3]
  • Dear Martin / Dear Marcello: Gardner and Truzzi on Skepticism by Dana Richards, April 28, 2017[18]
  • Problems in sorting and graph algorithms OCLC 12048476
  • The colossal book of short puzzles and problems ISBN 0393061140
  • The Mathemagician and Pied Puzzler ISBN 156881075X
  • Dana Richards, "Martin Gardner: A 'Documentary' ", in The Mathematician and the Pied Puzzler: A collection in tribute to Martin Gardner (1999), ed.

References edit

  1. ^ The Steiner tree problem Authors: Frank Hwang, Dana Richards, Pawel Winter;North-Holland, 1992 ISBN 9780444890986
  2. ^ Dana S Richards, George Mason University, National Science Foundation Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library
  3. ^ a b c The Bibliography of Martin Gardner Dana Richards (editor), Donald E. Knuth (foreword), June, 2023, Pub: Stanford Center for the Study of Language and Information, ISBN 1684000327
  4. ^ a b c Dana Richards GMU: Biosketch
  5. ^ Dana Richards at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  6. ^ Awards National Science Foundation
  7. ^ Books by Dana Richards ISBN.NET
  8. ^ Dana S. Richards Computer Science Bibliography at DBLP
  9. ^ Speaker: Dana Richards Brigham Young University, Mar 22nd 2018
  10. ^ Martin Gardner: A Documentary by Dana Richards martin-gardner.org
  11. ^ Richards, Dana (2018). Martin Gardner, Annotator G4G13, April 2018 - video
  12. ^ The Legacy of Math Writer Martin Gardner NPR: All Things Considered, May 24, 2010
  13. ^ Meeting of the Puzzlers: Hundreds get together to celebrate Martin Gardner and recreational math By Dana Richards, Scientific American, June 2014
  14. ^ Math Games of Martin Gardner Still Spur Innovation By Colm Mulcahy and Dana Richards, Scientific American, October 2014
  15. ^ Dana Richards (Editor), Martin Gardner (Author), The Colossal Book of Short Puzzles and Problems, W. W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-06114-7
  16. ^ RETROSPECTIVE: Martin Gardner (1914–2010) Science, 09 July 2010, Vol. 329, Issue 5988, pp. 157
  17. ^ Algorithmic Puzzles and Martin Gardner Dana Richards CoM Oct 2020, Jan 22, 2021
  18. ^ Dear Martin Dear Marcello: Gardner and Truzzi on Skeptic WorldScientific, p. 10

External links edit