Nancy Lynch

{{Infobox scientist

|name = Nancy Lynch

|image =

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|birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1948|01|19}}

|birth_place = Brooklyn, New York City

|death_date =

|death_place =

|nationality =

|field = Computer science

|work_institutions = Tufts University
University of Southern California
Florida International University
Georgia Tech
MIT

|alma_mater = Brooklyn College
MIT

|doctoral_advisor = Albert R. Meyer

|doctoral_students = Cal Newport
George Varghese

|known_for = Distributed systems

|awards = ACM Fellow {{small|(1997)}}
Dijkstra Prize {{small|(2001, 2007)}}
Member, National Academy of Engineering {{small|(2001)}}
Van Wijngaarden Award {{small|(2006)}}
IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award {{small|(2010)}}
Member, National Academy of Sciences {{small|(2015)}}
Knuth Prize {{small|(2007)}}

|thesis_title = Relativization of the Theory of Computational Complexity

|thesis_url =

|thesis_year = 1972}}

Nancy Ann Lynch (born January 19, 1948)[https://books.google.com/books?id=7yGvrf3-gskC&q= Who's who of American women]. Marquis Who's Who, 1973. p. 587. is a computer scientist affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering in the EECS department and heads the "Theory of Distributed Systems" research group at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

Education and early life

Lynch was born in Brooklyn, and her academic training was in mathematics. She attended Brooklyn College and MIT, where she received her Ph.D. in 1972 under the supervision of Albert R. Meyer.{{cite thesis|type=Ph.D.|first=Lynch|last=Nancy|title=Relativization of the theory of computational complexity|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|year=1972|hdl=1721.1/12180}}{{MathGenealogy|id=81227}}

Work

She served on the math and computer science faculty at several other universities, including Tufts University, the University of Southern California, Florida International University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), prior to joining the MIT faculty in 1982. Since then, she has been working on applying mathematics to the tasks of understanding and constructing complex distributed systems.

Her 1985 work with Michael J. Fischer and Mike Paterson{{Cite journal | last1 = Fischer | first1 = M. J. |author-link1=Michael J. Fischer| last2 = Lynch | first2 = N. A. |author-link2=Nancy Lynch| last3 = Paterson | first3 = M. S. |author-link3=Michael S. Paterson| doi = 10.1145/3149.214121 | title = Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process | journal = Journal of the ACM| volume = 32 | issue = 2 | pages = 374–382 | year = 1985 | s2cid = 207660233 | url = https://groups.csail.mit.edu/tds/papers/Lynch/jacm85.pdf}} on consensus problems received the PODC Influential-Paper Award in 2001.{{cite web|url=http://www.podc.org/influential/2001.html|title=PODC Influential Paper Award: 2001|access-date=2009-07-06}} Their work showed that in an asynchronous distributed system, consensus is impossible if there is one processor that crashes. On their contribution, Jennifer Welch wrote that "this result has had a monumental impact in distributed computing, both theory and practice. Systems designers were motivated to clarify their claims concerning under what circumstances the systems work."

She is the author of numerous research articles about distributed algorithms and impossibility results, and about formal modeling and validation of distributed systems (see, e.g., input/output automaton). She is the author of the graduate textbook "Distributed Algorithms".{{cite book|title=Distributed Algorithms|url=https://archive.org/details/distributedalgor0000lync|url-access=registration|last=Lynch|first=Nancy|publisher=Morgan Kaufmann Publishers|year=1996|isbn=978-1-55860-348-6|location=San Francisco, CA}} She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and an ACM Fellow.{{Cite web|url=http://awards.acm.org/award_winners/lynch_2276129.cfm|title=Nancy A Lynch – Award Winner|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|access-date=31 October 2013}}

Recognition

1997: ACM Fellow
2001: Dijkstra Paper Prize of PODC conference
2001: Elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering for the development of theoretical foundations for distributed computing.{{cite web|url=http://www.nae.edu/MembersSection/Directory20412/28957.aspx |title=NAE Members Directory - Dr. Nancy A. Lynch |publisher=NAE |access-date=December 31, 2010}}
2006: Van Wijngaarden Award
2007: Knuth Prize
2007: Dijkstra Paper Prize of PODC conference
2010: IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award{{cite web|title=IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award Recipients|url=http://www.ieee.org/documents/piore_rl.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130217000243/http://www.ieee.org/documents/piore_rl.pdf|archive-date=February 17, 2013|access-date=March 20, 2021|publisher=IEEE}}
2012: Athena Lecturer{{cite web|title=Lynch named Athena Lecturer|publisher=MIT News|date=18 April 2012|access-date=31 October 2013|url=http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/lynch-named-athena-lecturer.html}}
2015: National Academy of Sciences{{cite web | url=http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/may-3-2016-NAS-Election.html

|title=National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected |access-date=2016-05-05}}

Bibliography

{{cite book|last1=Lynch|first1=Nancy|last2=Merritt|first2=Michael|last3=Weihl|first3=William|last4=Fekete|first4=Alan|title=Atomic Transactions|date=1994|publisher=Morgan Kaufmann|location=San Mateo, California|isbn=9781558601048|pages=[https://archive.org/details/atomictransactio0000unse/page/476 476]|url=https://archive.org/details/atomictransactio0000unse/page/476}}

{{cite book|last1=Lynch|first1=Nancy A.|title=Distributed Algorithms|url=https://archive.org/details/distributedalgor0000lync|url-access=registration|date=1998|publisher=Kaufmann|location=San Francisco, California|isbn=978-1558603486|edition= 2nd}}

{{cite book|last1=Kaynar|first1=Dilsun|last2=Lynch|first2=Nancy|last3=Segala|first3=Roberto|last4=Vaandrager|first4=Frits|title=The Theory of Timed I/O Automata|date=2011|publisher=Morgan & Claypool|location=San Rafael, California|isbn=9781608450039|pages=137|edition= 2nd}}