Erich Kaltofen’s Work Celebrated at Computer Algebra 2016 Conference

The Milestones in Computer Algebra 2016 Conference, held July 16–18 at the University of Waterloo, celebrated the research of Professor Erich Kaltofen. Among 64 registrants, 35 spoke at the conference, including five invited speakers who surveyed Kaltofen’s work in symbolic computation. Kaltofen’s lecture “Remembrance of Things Past” described scientific correspondence with Robert McNaughton on theoretical computer science, Hans Zassenhaus on polynomial factorization, and David G. Cantor on Jacobians of hyperelliptic curves. The conference was funded by the Fields Institute in Toronto, the University of Waterloo, and the Maplesoft corporation, which presented Kaltofen with a model Gomboc, whose existence was proved with the help of the Maple software. The photo shows Kaltofen and his wife with eight of his graduate students: from left to right: Markus Hitz (Ph.D. 1998, RPI), John May (Ph.D. 2005, NC State), Gregory Imirzian (MS 1986, RPI), George Yuhasz (Ph.D. 2009, NC State), Erich and Hoang Kaltofen, Cleveland Waddell (Ph.D. in progress, NC State), Wen-Shin Lee (Ph.D. 2001, NC State), Austin Lobo (Ph.D. 1995, RPI), Y. N. Lakshman (Ph.D. 1990, RPI).