computer science

Roberto Tamassia

Roberto Tamassia is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Roberto Tamassia rather than just read about it. In short: Roberto Tamassia is an American-Italian computer scientist, the Plastech Professor of Computer Science at Brown University, and served as the chair of the Brown Computer Science department from 2007 to 2014. His research specialty is in the design and analysis of algorithms for graph drawing, computational geometry, and computer security.

Key takeaways

Roberto Tamassia belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Roberto Tamassia to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Roberto Tamassia from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Roberto Tamassia is an American-Italian computer scientist, the Plastech Professor of Computer Science at Brown University, and served as the chair of the Brown Computer Science department from 2007 to 2014. His research specialty is in the design and analysis of algorithms for graph drawing, computational geometry, and computer security. He is also the author of several textbooks.

Professional biography Tamassia received a laurea (the Italian equivalent of an M.S. degree) from the University of Rome "La Sapienza" in 1984, and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under the supervision of Franco Preparata in 1988. He then took a faculty position at Brown; he has also held visiting positions at the University of Texas at Dallas, the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, and La Sapienza. Tamassia is an ISI highly cited researcher. He was one of the original organizers of the International Symposium on Graph Drawing, and was co-chair of that conference in 1994; he has also been co-chair of the semiannual Workshop on Algorithms and Data Structures (1997, 1999, and 2001) and the annual Workshop on Algorithms and Experiments (2005). He is founding editor-in-chief (since 1996) of the Journal of Graph Algorithms and Applications as well as belonging to several other journal editorial boards.

Awards and honors In 2006, the IEEE Computer Society gave Tamassia their Technical Achievement Award "for pioneering the field of graph drawing and for outstanding contributions to the design of graph and geometric algorithms." In 2008, he was elected as an IEEE Fellow. In 2012 he was named a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery "for contributions to graph drawing, algorithms and data structures and to computer science education", and also named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Personal life Tamassia was married to Isabel Cruz, also a noted computer scientist, until her death in 2021.

Books Goodrich, M. T.; Tamassia, R. (1998), Data Structures and Algorithms in Java, Wiley. Fourth edition, 2005. Di Battista, G.; Eades, P.; Tamassia, R.; Tollis, I. G. (1999), Graph Drawing, Prentice-Hall, ISBN 978-0-13-301615-4. Goodrich, M. T.; Tamassia, R. (2002), Algorithm Design, Wiley. Goodrich, M. T.; Tamassia, R.; Mount, D. (2003), Data Structures and Algorithms in C++, Wiley

References

External links Tamassia's home page at Brown. Roberto Tamassia publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Roberto Tamassia

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Roberto Tamassia claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Roberto Tamassia before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Roberto Tamassia ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Roberto Tamassia

In research: Roberto Tamassia appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Roberto Tamassia in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Roberto Tamassia is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 20th-century American scientists, 20th-century Italian scientists, 21st-century American scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Roberto Tamassia outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Roberto Tamassia in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Roberto Tamassia means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Roberto Tamassia out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Roberto Tamassia in simple terms?

Why does Roberto Tamassia matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Roberto Tamassia?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Roberto Tamassia.