Diane L. Souvaine is a professor of computer science and an adjunct professor of mathematics at Tufts University.

Diane L. Souvaine
Diane Souvaine at the NSF 70th Anniversary Symposium, 2020
NationalityAmerican
Board member ofNational Science Board
Academic background
EducationRadcliffe College
Dartmouth College
Alma materPrinceton University
Doctoral advisorDavid P. Dobkin
Academic work
DisciplineComputational geometry
InstitutionsTufts University
Rutgers University

Contributions

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Souvaine's research is in computational geometry and its applications, including robust non-parametric statistics and molecular modeling.[1][2][3][4] She has also encouraged women and minorities to study and pursue careers in mathematics and the sciences and advocated gender neutrality in science teaching.[2][5][6]

Education and career

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After undergraduate and masters studies at Radcliffe College of Harvard University and at Dartmouth College, Souvaine earned her Ph.D. in 1986 from Princeton University under the supervision of David P. Dobkin.[3][7] She held a faculty position at Rutgers University from 1986 to 1998,[3] and from 1992 to 1994 served first as acting associate director and then as acting director of DIMACS.[1][3] From 1994 to 1995 she took a visiting position in mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, and in 1998 she took a permanent position at Tufts University.

Leadership and administration

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At Tufts, Souvaine was department chair from 2002 to 2005 and (after a sabbatical at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) was reappointed as chair in 2006.[2] She was Vice Provost for Research from 2012 to 2016.[8]

She joined the National Science Board, a 24-member body that governs the National Science Foundation and advises the United States government about science policy, in 2008,[1] and was the chair of the board for 2018–2020.[9] She also served for several years on the board of advisors for the Computer Science Department at the University of Vermont as well as for the Computer Science Department at Lehigh University.[2]

Recognition

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In 2008 Souvaine won Tufts' Lillian and Joseph Leibner Award for Excellence in Teaching and Advising of Students.[5] In 2011, she was listed as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery for her research in computational geometry and her service to the computing community.[10] She became a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2016.[11] The Association for Women in Mathematics has included her in the 2020 class of AWM Fellows for "sustained advocacy, support and mentorship of women and students underrepresented in STEM fields in mathematics and theoretical computer science at multiple scales, from impacting individual mentees and advisees, to creating deep and broad institutional cultural change".[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b c National Science Board Nominees Sent to the U.S. Senate, National Science Foundation, September 18, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d Diane Souvaine Archived 2011-07-09 at the Wayback Machine, CS Board of Advisors Archived 2008-06-20 at the Wayback Machine, Univ. of Vermont.
  3. ^ a b c d Radcliffe Institute Fellows Archived 2010-06-28 at the Wayback Machine, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, 2006.
  4. ^ [1], An intuitive approach to measuring protein surface curvature, Proteins 2005, an article written by Ryan G. Coleman, Michael A. Burr, Diane L. Souvaine, and Alan C. Cheng
  5. ^ a b Faculty awards 2007–2008, Tufts University.
  6. ^ Bombardieri, Marcella (December 18, 2005), "In computer science, a growing gender gap: Women shunning a field once seen as welcoming", Boston Globe.
  7. ^ Diane Loring Souvaine at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  8. ^ Vice Provost for Research Diane L. Souvaine, Tufts University, accessed 2016-05-21.
  9. ^ "Diane Souvaine Elected Chair of National Science Board", Tufts Now, May 7, 2018, retrieved August 3, 2018
  10. ^ ACM Names Fellows for Computing Advances that Are Driving Innovation Archived 2011-12-09 at the Wayback Machine, Association for Computing Machinery, December 8, 2011.
  11. ^ "2016 AAAS Fellows approved by the AAAS Council", Science, 354 (6315): 981–984, November 2016, Bibcode:2016Sci...354..981., doi:10.1126/science.354.6315.981, PMID 27885000
  12. ^ 2020 Class of AWM Fellows, Association for Women in Mathematics, retrieved November 8, 2019