Jonathan Shewchuk

Jonathan Shewchuk
Born
Cranbrook, British Columbia, Canada
EducationSimon Fraser University (BSc)
Carnegie Mellon University (MS, PhD)
Known forTriangle mesh-generation software
Robust geometric predicates
An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing Pain
AwardsJ. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software (2003)
Sloan Research Fellowship (2004)
Computational Geometry Test-of-Time Award (2012)
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science, computational geometry, scientific computing
WorkplacesUniversity of California, Berkeley
ThesisDelaunay Refinement Mesh Generation (1997)
Gary Miller and David O'Hallaron
Websitepeople.eecs.berkeley.edu/~jrs/


Jonathan Richard Shewchuk is a Canadian computer scientist and professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. His research includes scientific computing, computational geometry, mesh generation, numerical robustness, surface reconstruction, numerical methods, machine learning theory, and physically based animation.

Shewchuk widely known for creating Triangle, a widely used two-dimensional mesh-generation program that received the 2003 J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software. He is also the author of the widely-read 1994 tutorial An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing Pain, an intuitive exposition of the conjugate gradient method; the ACM Digital Library listed more than 3,600 citations to it in September 2026.

Early life and education

Shewchuk, born in Cranbrook, British Columbia, earned a Bachelor of Science in physics and computing science from Simon Fraser University in 1990. He subsequently earned an MS and a PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University, completing his doctorate in 1997 under the supervision of Gary Miller and David O'Hallaron.

His dissertation, Delaunay Refinement Mesh Generation, was done at Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science where it won the Doctoral Dissertation Award for the best thesis of 1997. During his graduate work, he participated in Carnegie Mellon's Quake Project, a multidisciplinary effort to develop large-scale finite-element earthquake simulations. The project received the Allen Newell Award for Research Excellence in 1998.

Shewchuk joined the Berkeley faculty in 1998.

He appears in online course videos of CS 61B: Data Structures class in University of California, Berkeley.


References

  1. 1 2 "Jonathan Shewchuk". Research UC Berkeley. University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  2. ↑ Shewchuk, Jonathan Richard. "Triangle: A Two-Dimensional Quality Mesh Generator and Delaunay Triangulator". Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  3. ↑ Shewchuk, Jonathan Richard (4 August 1994). An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing Pain (PDF) (Report). Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  4. ↑ "An Introduction to the Conjugate Gradient Method Without the Agonizing Pain". ACM Digital Library. Association for Computing Machinery. 1994. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  5. 1 2 "Jonathan Richard Shewchuk". University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  6. ↑ "Jonathan Shewchuk". University of California, Berkeley, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  7. ↑ "Quake Group News Archive". Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved 2 September 2026.
  8. ↑ "Newell Award Recipients". Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science. 13 April 1998. Retrieved 2 September 2026.