Carola Wenk facts for kids

Carola Wenk is a computer scientist from Germany and America. She is known for her work on computer programs that find similarities between different shapes. For example, she helps computers figure out how a car's path matches a road map. She also compares paths using something called "Fréchet distance" and looks at data from science experiments.

Her work also helps in medicine. She has used virtual reality to help diagnose an eye disease called glaucoma. Today, she is a professor who teaches computer science at Tulane University.

Carola Wenk's Journey in Computer Science

Early Life and Education

Carola Wenk was born in 1973. She grew up in Berlin, Germany. She loved math and went to the Free University of Berlin. In 1998, she earned her diploma in mathematics. Her special project was about using computer programs to help date old trees by looking at their rings.

She continued her studies at the Free University of Berlin. In 2002, she earned her doctorate degree in computer science. Her big project for this degree was about matching shapes in different ways using computers.

Teaching and Research Career

After finishing her doctorate, Carola Wenk did more research at the University of Arizona. This is called "postdoctoral research," where scientists continue to learn and work on projects after getting their main degrees.

In 2004, she became a teacher at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She taught computer science there. From 2010 to 2012, she was chosen to lead the university's faculty senate. This group helps make important decisions for the university.

While leading the faculty senate, she helped make two big changes. One change was to allow plus and minus signs with letter grades, like A- or B+. This gave students more specific feedback on their work. The other change was to make all printers and copiers on campus print on both sides of the paper. This helped the university use less paper and be more eco-friendly.

In 2012, Carola Wenk moved to Tulane University to teach computer science. She became a full professor in 2017. Since 2021, she has been the head of the Computer Science Department at Tulane. She also teaches math classes.

Books by Carola Wenk

Carola Wenk has also written a book. In 2015, she co-authored a book called Map Construction Algorithms. She wrote it with Mahmuda Ahmed, Sophia Karagiorgou, and Dieter Pfoser. This book is about how computers create maps.