Professor Frank Tompa has been awarded an honourary degree by Halifax, Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University. Being celebrated for his curiosity, influence, and dedication to research, Tompa's work in the fields of data structures and databases have led him to numerous awards such as being named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, and receiving the Award of Excellence in Graduation Supervision from Waterloo.
Having been named a "leader in Canadian science" by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Tompa's approach to text database research starts by seeking real applications' needs. He is particularly interested in problems that can be addressed through (1) improvements to data models and languages for structured text, (2) design and implementation of text transformation systems, and (3) design and implementation of improved algorithms and storage structures for document searching and browsing.
Tompa's project with Gaston Gonnet on computerizing the Oxford English Dictionary was the driving force behind the establishment of Open Text Corporation, one of Canada's largest high-tech companies.
Congratulations, Frank!
