| Erik D. Demaine | |
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Erik Demaine (left), Martin Demaine (center), and Bill Spight (right) watch John Horton Conway demonstrate a card trick (June 2005).
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| Born | February 28, 1981 Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Residence | U.S. |
| Nationality | Canadian and American |
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Alma mater | Dalhousie University University of Waterloo |
Erik D. Demaine (b. February 28, 1981, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada), is a professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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Erik was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. His parents are Martin Demaine and Judy Anderson. At age 7, he spent time travelling North America with his father, Martin Demaine, an artist and sculptor; he was home-schooled.[1] Demaine was a child prodigy.[2] He entered Dalhousie University in Canada at the age of 12, completed his bachelor's degree when only 14 and completed his PhD when only 20 years old.[3][4]
His PhD dissertation, a seminal work in the field of computational origami, was completed at the University of Waterloo.[5] This work was awarded the Canadian Governor General's Gold Medal from the University of Waterloo and the NSERC Doctoral Prize (2003) for the best PhD thesis and research in Canada (one of four awards). This thesis work was largely incorporated into a book.[6]
He joined the MIT faculty in 2001 at age 20, reportedly the youngest professor in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[3][7] In 2003 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship.
He is a member of the Theory of Computation group at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
Mathematical origami artwork by Erik and Martin Demaine was part of the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 2008 and has been included in the MoMA permanent collection.[8]