Kateryna Yushchenko (scientist)

In the 1990s, the efforts of the School of Theoretical Programming were concentrated on the study of algebraic grammar-methods of knowledge representation model of computation, and friendly user interface for designing and developing databases and knowledge bases for decision support systems, expert systems and methods of learning for them.

Yushchenko was the founder of the first Soviet School of Theoretical Programming. During the 1970s–1980s, theoretical programming became a subject of research of its own. One of the major achievements of the School at that time was the creation of algebraic grammar methods for software synthesis.

To prepare programmers, Yushchenko wrote an educational series of textbooks in the 1970s. Yushchenko held five Copyright Certificates, which developed eight State Standards of Ukraine. She is an author of over 200 manuscripts, including 23 monographs and train aids. Part of these works have two to-three editions, and have been translated to more than 5 languages internationally, including German, Czech, Hungarian, French, and Danish.

In the process of working with MESM, it became clear that the more complex tasks were difficult to solve by writing simple machine programs. There was a need to develop a high-level programming language, but there was a problem: the absence of an appropriate translator for better human/computer communication. L.I. Kaluzhnin, a professor at Kyiv University, who taught a course on mathematical logic in the 1950–1970s, made a significant advancement in the understanding of this problem and formalized a scheme of interfacing with the program. Following this development, in 1955, Yushchenko developed a programming language based on two general principles for the computer work: addressing and software management. Creating a convenient system of concepts for describing the computer architecture and its system instructions, the language thus became the means of manipulation of the second-rank addresses (Pointers) and higher ranks. Address programming language became the first fundamental achievement of the Soviet School of Theoretical Programming.

Kateryna Lohvynivna Yushchenko (Ukrainian: Катерина Логвинівна Ющенко, Russian: Екатерина Логвиновна Ющенко, 8 December 1919, Chyhyryn; died 15 August 2001) was a Ukrainian computer and information research scientist, corresponding member of USSR Academy of Sciences (1976), and member of The International Academy of Computer Science. She developed one of the world's first high-level languages with indirect address in programming (Pointers are analogous to this addressing), called the Address programming language. Over the period of her academic career, Yushchenko supervised 45 Ph.D. students. Further professional achievements include Yushchenko being awarded two USSR State Prizes, The USSR Council of Ministers Prize, The Academician Glushkov Prize, and The Order of Princess Olga. Yushchenko was the first woman in the USSR to become a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in programming.

Kateryna Lohvynivna Yushchenko (née Rvacheva) was born in 1919 in Chyhyryn, central Ukraine. She started her undergraduate studies in Kyiv University in 1937, and during the Second World War she attended the Central Asian State University in Tashkent, graduating in 1942. After the war she returned to Ukraine and in 1950, under the direction of Boris Gnedenko, she obtained a Ph.D. from the Institute of Mathematics of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. For a period of seven years, Yushchenko held the position of Senior Researcher of the Kiev Institute of Mathematics of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences (1950–57). In 1954, the Levedev Laboratory (where the first computer in continental Europe MESM was created) was transferred to the Institute of Mathematics. Yushchenko was a member of the joint group of scholars operating the MESM. In 1957 she became Director of the Institute of Computer Science of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences. During her forty years service to the institute, Yushchenko created an internationally notable scientific school of theoretical programming.