Klara Nahrstedt facts for kids

Klara Nahrstedt is a very important computer scientist. She is a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She also leads a special lab there called the Coordinated Science Laboratory. Her work helps make sure that things like videos, music, and games work smoothly on computers and the internet.

About Klara Nahrstedt's Work

Klara Nahrstedt's research focuses on how computers handle different types of media, like videos, sounds, and pictures. This is called multimedia. She also works on quality of service. This means making sure that when you watch a video online or play a game, it doesn't freeze or lag. It's about making sure you get a good experience.

She also studies middleware. This is like a hidden layer of software that helps different computer programs talk to each other. It makes complex systems work together smoothly.

Her Education and Early Career

Klara Nahrstedt studied mathematics at the Humboldt University of Berlin in Germany. She earned her first degree in 1984 and a master's degree in 1985. Her master's degree focused on numerical analysis, which is about solving math problems using computers.

Later, she moved to the United States and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995. Her advisor there was Jonathan M. Smith.

From 2000 to 2006, she was the main editor for a science magazine called Multimedia Systems. She also led a group called the ACM Special Interest Group on Multimedia from 2007 to 2013. This group helps people who work with multimedia share ideas and learn from each other.

Awards and Honors

Klara Nahrstedt has received many important awards for her work:

• In 2012, she was chosen as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. This honor was given for her important contributions to managing the quality of multimedia systems that are spread across different computers.
• She is also a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). This was for her work on making sure multimedia systems work well from start to finish.
• Also in 2012, she won an IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award. This was for her new ideas in managing quality and resources in both wired and wireless computer networks.
• In 2013, she became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. This is a very old and respected science academy in Germany.
• In 2022, she was elected to the United States National Academy of Engineering. This is one of the highest honors for engineers in the U.S.

Klara Nahrstedt's mother is Ruzena Bajcsy, who is also a famous professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Selected Books

Klara Nahrstedt has written several books about computer science:

• Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications (with Ralf Steinmetz, 1995)
• Multimedia Fundamentals, Vol. I: Media Coding and Content Processing (with Ralf Steinmetz, 2002)
• Multimedia Systems (with Ralf Steinmetz, 2004)
• Multimedia Applications (with Ralf Steinmetz, 2004)
• Quality of Service in Wireless Networks over Unlicensed Spectrum (2012)