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Joseph O'Rourke
Joseph O'Rourke is the Olin Professor and chair of Computer Science. He obtained his Ph.D. in computer science from University of Pennsylvania in 1980, and was Assistant and then Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, before moving to Smith in 1988 to found and chair the Computer Science department.
He has won several awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1987, the NSF Director's Award for Distinguished Teaching Scholars in 2001, and elected as an ACM Fellow in 2012, the only college teacher that year. His early research is summarized in a monograph (Oxford, 1987). He subsequently wrote a textbook (Cambridge, 2nd ed. 1998), and coedited the 1927-page Handbook of Discrete and Computational Geometry (CRC Press, 3rd ed. 2018). He coauthored a monograph (Cambridge, 2007) on folding and unfolding, and coauthored another textbook (Princeton, 2011). He has published more than 165 papers in journals and conference proceedings, more than 30 of which were coauthored with undergraduates. His 6th and most recent book, How To Fold It, is written for high-school students. He is working on a book on the mathematics of pop-up cards.
He is also a Professor of Mathematics, the Director of the Arts & Technology program, and former Provost & Dean of the Faculty.
Office phone: 413-585-3673
Office: Ford Hall 28=256.
E-mail: jorourke@smith.edu