Meral Özsoyoglu facts for kids
Zehra Meral Özsoyoglu is a Turkish-American computer scientist. She is known for her work with databases. Databases are like organized digital filing cabinets that store lots of information. She studied how to ask questions (called query languages) to these databases and how to organize the information inside them.
Her work also helped use databases in science, like in bioinformatics (using computers to understand biology) and medical informatics (using computers in healthcare). She was a professor of computer science at Case Western Reserve University and is now retired.
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Her Journey in Computer Science
Early Life and Education
Zehra Meral Özsoyoglu studied at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, where she earned her first two degrees. Later, she moved to Edmonton, Canada, to study at the University of Alberta. There, she earned her highest degree, a doctorate, in 1980. Her research was about making databases work faster when they are spread out in different places.
A Pioneer in Her Field
In 1980, she started teaching at Case Western Reserve University. She was the very first woman to join the computer science department as a professor. She was also only the second woman to become a professor in the entire engineering school there. Later, she made history again by becoming the first woman to lead her department as its chair.
Leading Important Publications
Özsoyoglu also held important leadership roles in the world of computer science. From 2007 to 2014, she was the main editor for a major journal called ACM Transactions on Database Systems. She was the first woman to have this important job for that journal. She also led another important publication, the Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment, from 2011 to 2012. She helped organize four big conferences about databases too.
Awards and Recognition
Honored for Her Work
In 2011, Zehra Meral Özsoyoglu was recognized as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. This is a special honor given to people who have made big contributions to computer science. She received it for her important work on database systems.
A Special Award for Service
She received another important award in 2018. This was the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award. It recognized her dedication and service to the database community. The award highlighted her work as an editor for important journals and for leading program committees for major database conferences.
