BIOGRAPHY
Martin and Erik Demaine are father and son. Martin is the father: born in 1942, he is an artist and sculptor. Erik, the son, was born in 1981, he is a professor of Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Demaine was a child prodigy and joined the MIT faculty in 2001 at age 20, reportedly the youngest professor in the history of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
At age 7, he spent time traveling North America with his father. He was home-schooled by him and entered Dalhousie University in Canada at the age of 12, completed his bachelor's degree when only 14 and completed his PhD when only 20 years old.
His PhD dissertation, a seminal work in the field of computational origami, was completed at the University of Waterloo.
This work was awarded the Canadian Governor General's Gold Medal from the University of Waterloo and the NSERC Doctoral Prize (2003) for the best PhD thesis and research in Canada (one of four awards). This thesis work was largely incorporated into a book.
And today he is a member of the Theory of Computation group at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
FROM THE GLASS TO THE PAPER. Demaine the father, attended Medford High School in Medford, Massachusetts. After studying glassblowing in England, he began his artistic career by blowing art glass in New Brunswick in the early 1970s.
The Demaine Studio, located in Miramichi Bay and later at Opus Village in Mactaquac, was the first one-man glass studio in Canada, part of the international studio glass movement. Demaine's pieces from this period are represented in the permanent collections of half a dozen major museums including the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National Gallery of Canada.
THE MIT CONNECTION. Since joining MIT, (yes the father before the son) Demaine has begun blowing glass again, as an instructor at the MIT Glass Lab; his newer work features innovative glassblowing techniques intended as a puzzle to his fellow glassblowers.
In 1987 (when Erik was six) they together founded the Erik and Dad Puzzle Company which distributed puzzles throughout Canada. Erik was home-schooled by Martin, and although Martin never received any higher degree than his high school diploma, his home-schooling catapulted Erik to a B.S. at age 14 and a Ph.D. and MIT professorship at age 20, making him the youngest professor ever hired by MIT.
MATHEMATICS AND ART AT MOMA. The two Demaines continue to work closely together and have many joint works of both mathematics and art, including three pieces of mathematical origami in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; their joint mathematical works focus primarily on the mathematics of folding and unfolding objects out of flat materials such as paper and on the computational complexity of games and puzzles. Martin and Erik are also featured in the movie Between the Folds, a documentary on modern origami.
Mathematical origami artwork by Erik and Martin Demaine was part of the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in 2008 and has been included in the MoMA permanent collection.
