Carola Wenk facts for kids
Carola Wenk (born in 1973) is a computer scientist from Germany and America. She is known for her work on computer programs (called algorithms) that find similarities between different shapes. For example, her research helps match how vehicles move to roads on a map, or compare different paths. She also works on using computer shapes to help in medicine, like using virtual reality to check for an eye disease called glaucoma. She is a professor of computer science at Tulane University.
Education and Career
Carola Wenk grew up in Berlin, Germany. She studied mathematics at the Free University of Berlin. In 1998, she earned her first degree there. She continued her studies and received her doctorate (a higher degree) in computer science in 2002. Her doctorate research was about matching shapes using computers.
After finishing her studies, Dr. Wenk worked as a researcher at the University of Arizona. In 2004, she became a professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. From 2010 to 2012, she was the head of the university's faculty senate. This group helps make decisions for the university. During her time as head, she helped change how grades were given to include plus and minus marks. She also helped start a policy to use less paper by making all campus printers print on both sides.
In 2012, she moved to Tulane University. She became a full professor in 2017. Since 2021, she has been the head of the Computer Science Department at Tulane. She also teaches in the math department.
Research and Work
Dr. Wenk's main research is about creating smart computer programs that can understand and compare shapes. Imagine you have a map and a GPS track of a car. Her work helps computers figure out exactly which roads the car drove on. This is called "map matching." She also studies how to compare different paths or movements, like how two different animals might move.
Her research also helps in health care. For example, she has worked on projects that use virtual reality to help doctors find problems with people's eyes, like glaucoma. This shows how computer science can be used to solve real-world problems in many different areas.
Book
Carola Wenk is one of the authors of a book called Map Construction Algorithms. She wrote this book with Mahmuda Ahmed, Sophia Karagiorgou, and Dieter Pfoser. It was published in 2015.
