Tarjan, Robert Endre

Robert Endre Tarjan, (born April 30, 1948, Pomona, California, U.S.), computer scientist and cowinner of the 1986 A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science, for “fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures.” Tarjan invented or coinvented some of the most efficient known algorithms and data structures for problems over a wide range of applications.

Tarjan earned a bachelor’s degree (1969) in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and a master’s degree (1971) and doctorate (1972) in computer science from Stanford University. After completing his studies, Tarjan held appointments at Cornell University (1972–73), the University of California, Berkeley (1973–75), Stanford University (1974–80), New York University (l98l–85), and Princeton University (1985– ). Tarjan also worked in industry for Bell Laboratories (1980–89), NEC Research Institute (1989–97), Intertrust Technologies Corporation (1997–2001; 2014– ), and the Hewlett-Packard Company (2002–13).

Tarjan is the author of Data Structures and Network Algorithms (1983) and, with George Polya and Donald R. Woods, Notes on Introductory Combinatorics (1983). Tarjan holds part of two patents for certain types of data compression and data encryption.

Tarjan was awarded the Nevanlinna Prize in Information Science (1983), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research (1984), the Association for Computing Machinery Paris Kanellakis Award in Theory and Practice (1999), and the European Academy of Sciences Blaise Pascal Medal in Mathematics and Computer Science (2004). He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1985), the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (1987), the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (1988), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1990), the American Philosophical Society (1990), the Institute for Combinatorics and its Applications (1991), the Association for Computing Machinery (1994), and the New York Academy of Sciences (1994).

His younger brother, James Tarjan, is a retired chess grandmaster.