Joseph F. Traub

Joseph Frederick Traub (June 24, 1932 – August 24, 2015) was an American computer scientist. He was the Edwin Howard Armstrong Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University and External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He held positions at Bell Laboratories, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon, and Columbia, as well as sabbatical positions at Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, California Institute of Technology, and the Technical University of Munich.

Traub was the author or editor of ten monographs and some 120 papers in computer science, mathematics, physics, finance, and economics. In 1959 he began his work on optimal iteration theory culminating in his 1964 monograph, Iterative Methods for the Solution of Equations. Subsequently, he pioneered work with Henryk Woźniakowski on computational complexity applied to continuous scientific problems (information-based complexity). He collaborated in creating significant new algorithms including the Jenkins–Traub algorithm for polynomial zeros, as well as the Shaw–Traub, Kung–Traub, and Brent–Traub algorithms. One of his research areas was continuous quantum computing. As of November 10, 2015, his works have been cited 8500 times, and he has an h-index of 35.

From 1971 to 1979 Traub headed the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon during a critical period. From 1979 to 1989 he was the founding chair of the Computer Science Department at Columbia. From 1986 to 1992 he served as founding chair of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Academies and held the post again 2005–2009. Traub was founding editor of the Annual Review of Computer Science (1986–1990) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Complexity (1985–2015). Both his research and institution building work have had a major impact on the field of computer science.