Tufts University Computer Scientist Elected AAAS Fellow

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Massachusetts (November 21, 2016) — Diane Souvaine, Ph.D., a professor of computer science at Tufts University, has been named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest scientific society. Election as a AAAS Fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

Souvaine was elected as part of the computing and communication section, and cited for her “contributions to the field of computational geometry and for exemplary service on behalf of the computing community, including serving on the National Science Board.”

The 2016 AAAS Fellows will be formally announced in the journal Science on Nov. 25, 2016. This year AAAS awarded 391 members this honor due to their scientifically and socially distinguished efforts to advance science.

“Dr. Souvaine is not only a preeminent researcher in the computational geometry field, but has also focused on service and teaching throughout her career,” said Kathleen Fisher, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science in the Tufts University School of Engineering. “I’m delighted that she is being recognized by her peers for her commitment to excellence, including her efforts around mentoring and retaining students from underrepresented populations in STEM fields.”

Souvaine joins several other members of the Tufts community who have been elected AAAS Fellows, including John Coffin, Ray Jackendoff, Carol Kumamoto, Krishna Kumar, Richard Lerner, Klaus Miczek, Raymond Nickerson, Mary JaneShultz, Abraham Sonenshein, Gail Sonenshein, David Walt, and Andrew Wright.

“I am honored, grateful, and humbled to join this distinguished group of Tufts AAAS Fellows, as well as the AAAS Fellows more broadly," said Souvaine.

At Tufts, Souvaine served as the Vice Provost for Research from 2012 to 2016, and now serves as Senior Advisor to the Provost. Her computational geometry research has commercial applications in materials engineering, microchip design, robotics and computer graphics.

In May, she was elected vice chair of the National Science Board, the governing body of the National Science Foundation. President George W. Bush first appointed Souvaine to the NSB in 2008 and President Barack Obama appointed her to a second six-year term in 2014. Souvaine is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, and served for more than two years in the directorate of the NSF Science and Technology Center on Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science.

New AAAS Fellows will be officially presented on February 18, 2017, at the AAAS Fellows Forum during the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting in Boston.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world’s largest general scientific society and publisher of a number of scientific journals. AAAS was founded in 1848 and includes nearly 250 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals.

About Tufts University

Tufts University, located on campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville and Grafton, Massachusetts, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's schools is widely encouraged.