Takao Nishizeki (西関 隆夫, Nishizeki Takao, 1947 – 30 January 2022[1]) was a Japanese mathematician and computer scientist who specialized in graph algorithms and graph drawing.

Education and career

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Nishizeki was born in 1947 in Fukushima, and was a student at Tohoku University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1969, a master's in 1971, and a doctorate in 1974. He continued at Tohoku as a faculty member, and became a full professor there in 1988.[2] He was the Dean of the Graduate School of Information Sciences, Tohoku University, from April 2008 to March 2010. He retired in 2010, becoming a professor emeritus at Tohoku University, but continued teaching as a professor at Kwansei Gakuin University until March 2015.[3] He was an Auditor of Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology from April 2016 to October 2018.

Contributions

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Nishizeki made significant contributions to algorithms for series–parallel graphs,[4] finding cliques in sparse graphs,[5] planarity testing[6] and the secret sharing with any access structure. He is the co-author of two books on planar graphs and graph drawing.[7]

In 1990, Nishizeki founded the annual International Symposium on Algorithms and Computation (ISAAC).[8]

Awards and honors

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At the 18th ISAAC symposium, in 2007, a workshop was held to celebrate his 60th birthday.[8]

In 1996, he became a life fellow of the IEEE "for contributions to graph algorithms with applications to physical design of electronic systems."[9] In 1996 he was selected as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery "for contributions to the design and analysis of efficient algorithms for planar graphs, network flows and VLSI routing".[10] Nishizeki was also a foreign fellow of the Bangladesh Academy of Sciences;[11] one of his students and frequent co-authors, Md. Saidur Rahman, is from Bangladesh.

Selected publications

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Books
  • Nishizeki, T.; Chiba, N. (1988), Planar Graphs: Theory and Algorithms, North-Holland Mathematics Studies, vol. 140, North-Holland, ISBN 978-0-444-70212-8, MR 0941967.
  • Nishizeki, Takao; Rahman, Md. Saidur (2004), Planar Graph Drawing, Lecture Notes Series on Computing, vol. 12, World Scientific, doi:10.1142/5648, ISBN 978-981-256-033-9, MR 2112244.
Research articles

References

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  1. ^ Okamoto, Yoshio (1 February 2022), "Takao Nishizeki", GDNET
  2. ^ Biography, Tohoku University, retrieved 2015-03-19.
  3. ^ Faculty profile, Kwansei Gakuin University, retrieved 2015-03-19.
  4. ^ Takamizawa, Nishizeki & Saito (1982).
  5. ^ Chiba & Nishizeki (1985).
  6. ^ Chiba et al. (1985).
  7. ^ Nishizeki & Chiba (1988); Nishizeki & Rahman (2004).
  8. ^ a b ISAAC Day 1, Joachim Gudmundsson, dense outliers, December 21, 2007, retrieved 2015-03-19.
  9. ^ 1995 New Fellows, IEEE Japan Section, retrieved 2015-03-19.
  10. ^ ACM Fellow award citation, retrieved 2015-03-19.
  11. ^ Member profile, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences, retrieved 2015-03-20.
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