ukkonen

Esko Ukkonen (born 1949) is a Finnish computer scientist known for influential work in string processing and automata theory. He is best known for Ukkonen's algorithm, a linear-time method for online construction of suffix trees, which enables suffix trees to be built incrementally as a string is read. This algorithm is regarded as a foundational result in text indexing and pattern matching, with applications in bioinformatics.

Ukkonen also contributed to approximate string matching. His early work on algorithms for computing edit distance with bounded error laid groundwork for efficient searching with errors and influenced subsequent research in computational biology and information retrieval. His research spans topics in theoretical computer science, including automata, formal languages, and string algorithms.

Ukkonen's work has had a broad and lasting impact on theoretical computer science, particularly in data structures and string processing. His contributions to suffix trees and related algorithms remain widely cited in textbooks and research literature, reflecting his role in shaping modern approaches to pattern matching and sequence analysis.