Laurie Hendren

Laurie Jane Hendren
Kayaking at Chandos Lake, Summer 2014
Born(1958-12-13)December 13, 1958
DiedMay 27, 2019(2019-05-27) (aged 60)
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Alma materQueen's University, Kingston
Cornell University
Known forProgramming languages
Compiler research
Pointer analysis
SpousePrakash Panangaden[1]
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
WorkplacesMcGill University
Alex Nicolau[2]
Websitewww.sable.mcgill.ca/~hendren
flatchestedwarriors.weebly.com

Laurie Hendren FRSC (December 13, 1958 – May 27, 2019)[3] was a Canadian computer scientist noted for her research in programming languages and compilers, and for her advocacy for patients to have access to their health data in Quebec.

Biography

Hendren received a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in computer science from Queen's University, Kingston in 1982 and 1984 respectively. She received a Ph.D in computer science from Cornell University in 1990.[4]

She then joined the School of Computer Science at the McGill University as an assistant professor in 1990. While there she was promoted to associate professor in 1995 and full professor in 2001. She also served as Associate Dean (Academic) for the Faculty of Science at McGill University from 2005 to 2014. In 2014, she became the 5 of diamonds in the Notable Women of Computing card deck.[5]

Awards and notable achievements

Hendren was awarded the Leo Yaffe Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Faculty of Science at McGill University[6] for the academic year 2006–2007. She was made an ACM Fellow[7] in 2009, awarded a Canada Research Chair[8] in 2011, and elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada[9] in 2012.

Hendren was the programming languages area editor of the Association for Computing Machinery books series[10] and has been the program chair of the Association for Computing Machinery SIGPLAN Programming Language Design and Implementation Conference.

In 2019, Hendren was awarded the senior AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize, but died before the ECOOP conference at which the prize is usually awarded. It was thus awarded posthumously.[11]

Research projects

Hendren has led or co-led several big open source research projects at McGill University. These are:

  • Soot: a framework for analyzing and transforming Java and Android Applications[12]
  • SableVM: an open implementation of a Java virtual machine
  • abc: the AspectBench Compiler for AspectJ[13]
  • McLab: compiler tools for array-based languages[14]
  • OHIG: The Opal Health Informatics Group that built and operated the Opal patient portal, the first patient portal in a hospital in Quebec[15]

References

  1. ↑ Lennox, R. B. (29 May 2019). "The passing of Prof. Laurie Hendren". McGill Faculty of Science.
  2. ↑ Alex Nicolau. "Alex Nicolau's home page". University of California, Irvine. Retrieved 2015-04-05.
  3. ↑ School of Computer Science, McGill University (2019-05-27). "The passing of Prof. Laurie Hendren". McGill University. Retrieved 2019-05-27.
  4. ↑ Laurie J. Hendren. "Laurie J. Hendren - CV". McGill University. Retrieved 2015-04-05.
  5. ↑ Susan H. Rodger (2014-12-13). "CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing". Duke University. Retrieved 2015-04-05.
  6. ↑ Cite error: The named reference LeoYaffe was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ↑ Cite error: The named reference ACMFellow was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ↑ Cite error: The named reference CRCChair was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ↑ Cite error: The named reference FRSC was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  10. ↑ ACM Books. "Board Members - ACM Books". ACM. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
  11. ↑ "The AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize Winners for 2019". www.aito.org. Retrieved 2019-05-28.
  12. ↑ "A framework for analyzing and transforming Java and Android Applications". sable.github.io. Archived from the original on 2014-12-14.
  13. ↑ "abc: The AspectBench Compiler for AspectJ - Introduction". Archived from the original on 2011-08-09. Retrieved 2026-02-02.
  14. ↑ "McLab".
  15. ↑ "OHIG - Opal Health Informatics Group".