Robert Tarjan

Short Bio

Robert E. Tarjan, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Computer Science, joined Princeton in 1985. He received doctoral and master’s degrees in computer science from Stanford in 1972 and 1971, respectively, after earning a bachelor’s in mathematics from Caltech. His academic experience involved assistant professorships at Cornell and Stanford, and a Miller research fellowship at UC, Berkeley. Professor Tarjan’s extensive involvement in the private sector includes past and continuing fellowship, research and scientific roles at the NEC Research Institute, Princeton; InterTrust Technologies, Sunnyvale, CA; Compaq Computer, Houston, TX; Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, CA; and Microsoft, Mountain View, CA. 

Professor Tarjan was awarded the ACM Turing Award in 1986 for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures. He was the first winner of the Rolf Nevanlinna Prize (now called the Abacus Prize), established in 1982 and awarded every four years for outstanding contributions in mathematical aspects of information sciences by the International Mathematical Union. His other honors include Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2010, the 2009 Edelman Award from INFORMS (member of winning H-P team), fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (2009), and the Blaise Pascal Medal in Mathematics and Computer Science from the European Academy of Sciences in 2004. 

Awards: ACM Turing Award, 1986; Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 1985; Member, National Academy of Sciences, 1987; Member National Academy of Engineering, 1988; Member American Philosophical Society, 1990; ACM Fellow, 1994; SIAM Fellow, 2009