Raphael Finkel

Raphael Finkel is a computer scientist known for his work in programming languages, compiler design, and data structures. With Jon Bentley, he invented the point quadtree in 1974, a spatial data structure that generalizes the binary search tree to two dimensions. Finkel's contributions span the boundary between theoretical computer science and practical systems design, and his work on the point quadtree anticipated the later development of spatial indexing techniques used in modern geographic information systems and computer graphics.