ACM has named Avi Wigderson as recipient of the 2023 ACM A.M. Turing Award for foundational contributions to the theory of computation, including reshaping our understanding of the role of randomness in computation, and for his decades of intellectual leadership in theoretical computer science.
Wigderson is the Herbert H. Maass Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. A graduate of The Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Wigderson was also a Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well as holding visiting appointments at Princeton University, the University of California at Berkeley, IBM, and other institutions. He has been a leading figure in areas including computational complexity theory, algorithms and optimisation, randomness and cryptography, parallel and distributed computation, combinatorics, and graph theory, as well as connections between theoretical computer science and mathematics and science.
“It’s important to point out that Avi Wigderson also received the Abel Prize, which is considered the most important honour for lifetime achievements in the field of mathematics,” explained ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. “Being selected for the ACM A.M. Turing Award is a fitting follow-up—as mathematics is foundational to computer science and Wigderson’s work has connected a wide range of mathematical sub-areas to theoretical computer science. Wigderson is a towering intellectual force in theoretical computer science, an exciting discipline that attracts some of the most promising young researchers to work on the most difficult challenges. This year’s Turing Award recognises Wigderson’s specific work on randomness, as well as the indirect but substantial impact he has had on the entire field of theoretical computer science.”
The ACM A.M. Turing Award, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” carries a $1 million prize with financial support provided by Google, Inc. The award is named for Alan M. Turing, the British mathematician who articulated the mathematical foundations of computing.
