Stephanie Forrest facts for kids

Stephanie Forrest is an American computer scientist born around 1958. She leads the Biodesign Center for Biocomputing, Security and Society at Arizona State University. Before this, she was a special professor of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Forrest is famous for her work on "adaptive systems." These are like smart computer programs that can learn and change. Her research includes genetic algorithms, which are inspired by how living things evolve. She also works on how computers can learn from our bodies' immune systems, how to fix computer programs automatically, and how to make computers safer.

Stephanie Forrest's Life Story

Stephanie Forrest earned her first degree from St. John's College in 1977. She then went on to study Computer and Communication Sciences at the University of Michigan. There, she received her master's degree in 1982. In 1985, she completed her PhD. Her PhD project was about how computer systems can work together to classify information.

After finishing her studies, Dr. Forrest worked at Teknowledge Inc. She also worked at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. This lab is famous for its scientific research.

In 1990, Stephanie Forrest joined the University of New Mexico. She became a professor of Computer Science. She also led two important groups there: the Computer Immune Systems Group and the Adaptive Computation Laboratory. From 2006 to 2011, she was the head of the Computer Science Department. In the 1990s, she also worked with the Santa Fe Institute. She was even a leader there for a short time from 1999 to 2000.

Dr. Forrest has received several important awards for her work. In 1991, she won the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award. In 2009, she received the IFIP TC2 Manfred Paul Award for Excellence in Software. Then, in 2011, she was given the ACM - AAAI Allen Newell Award. These awards show how much her work has helped the field of computer science.

Stephanie Forrest's Computer Science Work

Dr. Forrest's main research is about "adaptive systems." These are computer systems that can change and learn on their own. Her work includes several exciting areas:

• Genetic algorithms: These are computer programs that solve problems by using ideas from how living things evolve.
• Computational immunology: This involves using computers to understand how our body's immune system works.
• Biological modeling: Creating computer models to study how living things behave and interact.
• Automated software repair: Developing ways for computers to fix their own errors or problems.
• Computer security: Making computers and networks safer from attacks.

Since the 1990s, her research has led to many important discoveries. For example, she helped create the first practical system to detect unusual activity on computers, which could mean an attack. She also designed ways for computers to automatically respond to cyberattacks.

Dr. Forrest wrote an important paper suggesting that computer software could be made more diverse. This makes it harder for attackers to find weaknesses. She also worked on ways to protect people's privacy when sharing data, without using complex codes.

She has also used computer models to study large computer networks. More recently, she has focused on automatically fixing security problems in software. In biology, she has used her computer skills to study the immune system and diseases that change over time, like the flu and cancer.