Robert “Bob” Sedgewick, the William O. Baker *39 Professor of Computer Science and founding chair of the Department of Computer Science, transfers to emeritus status after thirty-six years at Princeton University. Bob joined Princeton after serving ten years on the faculty at Brown University. He also served on the board of directors of Adobe Systems from 1990 to 2016, and held visiting research positions at Xerox PARC, the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), INRIA, and Bell Laboratories. Bob has made fundamental research contributions in algorithms and data structures, analytic combinatorics, and the scientific analysis of algorithms. Throughout his career, he has pioneered new and scalable ways to disseminate knowledge. 

Bob was born in December 1946 in Connecticut and spent much of his childhood living in Storrs, Connecticut, where both of his parents were professors at the University of Connecticut. The family later moved to Maryland, where Bob graduated from Wheaton High School in 1964. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied mathematics from Brown University before pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at Stanford University. Bob’s 1975 dissertation, “Quicksort,” was a landmark in the study of efficient algorithms for putting the elements of a list in order. Sorting is a classic problem in computer science, and sorting algorithms are an important building block in many applications. In his thesis, Bob not only resolved several open theoretical problems in Quicksort but he also introduced several practical optimizations that are still widely used today. His thesis was published in the Garland Research Series of Outstanding Dissertations in the Computer Sciences in 1980. 

Bob joined the faculty at Brown University as an assistant professor in 1975, with promotion to associate professor in 1980 and full professor in 1983. In the late 1970s, Bob was involved in the creation of the computer science department at Brown. During this period, while visiting Xerox PARC, Bob developed (with Leo Guibas) red–black trees, a novel data structure for organizing information for efficient retrieval. This remarkable data structure runs on billions of devices today. 

Bob joined the faculty at Princeton University in 1985 as the founding chair of the Department of Computer Science, and in 1986 he became the William O. Baker *39 Professor of Computer Science. The computer science department grew out of what was then the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Initially, the new department occupied a floor of electrical engineering, but it soon became clear that the department would need a home of its own. The computer science building at 35 Olden Street opened in November 1989, with Bob taking charge of numerous aspects of the design. He even had the biggest open problem in theoretical computer science built directly into the brick facade! A collection of bricks encodes the question “P = NP?”, asking whether or not an important class of computational problems can be solved efficiently. This fundamental question remains unresolved to this day. 

In addition to his work on the computer science building, Bob was tireless in recruiting superstar faculty to the young department, putting Princeton on the map as a top place for computer science. He fostered a strong sense of community, including daily faculty get-togethers in the “tea room.” Bob also worked on the computer science curriculum, including taking on a heavy undergraduate teaching load even while serving as chair. A fantastic teacher, Bob received several teaching awards at Princeton, including the SEAS Distinguished Teaching Award in 2001 and the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award in 2013. Bob worked with Princeton computer science colleague Kevin Wayne to develop the popular introductory courses COS 126, “Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach,” and COS 226, “Algorithms and Data Structures.” COS 126 is the most popular course at Princeton, and is taken by half of the student body; COS 226 is taken by nearly one-third of Princeton students. Even when other faculty teach these courses, they use the extensive materials that Bob and Kevin developed together. 

Beyond teaching generations of Princeton students, Bob has brought computer science education to the rest of the world through his influential books and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Bob published the first edition of his Algorithms book in 1983; the fourth edition of the book, co-authored with Kevin Wayne, was published in 2011. This book revolutionized the teaching of algorithms by including implementations in familiar programming languages and analyzing their performance using both mathematical models and empirical observations. Its various editions, written in many programming languages, have sold over one million copies. Bob and Kevin also wrote the popular introductory textbook Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach. These two books are the basis of their hugely popular MOOCs that have reached millions more programmers and developers around the world. Bob also authored books on advanced topics related to his research expertise. These books include An Introduction to the Analysis of Algorithms and Analytic Combinatorics, both written with Philippe Flajolet. Their book on analytic combinatorics defines the field and was awarded the prestigious Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition in 2019.  

In recognition of his broad contributions to computer science education, Bob received the Association for Computing Machinery’s 2018 Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. The citation reads “For developing classic textbooks and online materials for the study of algorithms, analytic combinatorics, and introductory computer science that have educated generations of students worldwide.” 

Written by members of the Department of Computer Science faculty.