Jeff Erickson

Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professor
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Jeff drawn by Kay
portrait by Kay Erickson (2018)

I'm a computational geometer/topologist/graphophile with more general interests in algorithms, data structures, and lower bounds. I teach mostly large algorithms classes; you might find my free textbook and other course materials useful. Exactly half of my former PhD students have tenure. From 2013 to 2016, I was an associate department head and chair of the faculty recruiting committee. I am a SafeTOC advocate.

I have the lowest undergraduate GPA (2.4/4.0) of any professor I've ever met, although some of my colleagues came close, and a few others never finished college at all. (I really shouldn't be proud of that.) Only three other professors have been in my department longer than I have. (I really shouldn't be proud of that, either.)

 
Praxis tendatum docebit. [Practice will teach those who try.]
— Carl Friedrich Gauß, describing the fast Fourier transform (c. 1805)

Man muß jederzeit an Stelle von „Punkte, Geraden, Ebenen“ „Tische, Stühle, Bierseidel“ sagen können. [One must always be able to say “tables, chairs, beer mugs” in place of “points, lines, planes”.]
— David Hilbert to Otto Blumenthal, on the axiomatic method in mathematics

I believe in the third dimension, but not the other two.
— James "Kibo" Parry

As we all know, the easiest way to be at the top of your field is to choose a very small field.
— Simone Giertz, "Why you should make useless things" (2018)