Franco Preparata

Franco Preparata is an Italian-American computer scientist at Brown University best known for co-authoring the foundational 1985 textbook "Computational Geometry: An Introduction." This book, written with Michael Shamos, is credited with helping to establish computational geometry as a distinct academic field.

Preparata developed several foundational algorithms in the field, most notably the technique for computing the convex hull of a set of points. He also contributed heavily to geometric searching, point location, and the art gallery problem, which deal with optimizing how computers process spatial data.

Preparata is a professor of computer science at Brown University, an Ivy League research institution located in Providence, Rhode Island. His research there has spanned computational biology, algorithm design, and the mathematical foundations of computing.

Published in 1985, "Computational Geometry: An Introduction" was the first comprehensive textbook to formalize the mathematical study of geometric algorithms. It organized scattered research into a unified curriculum, setting the stage for decades of advancements in computer graphics, robotics, and geographic information systems.