Last year, Prof. Wigderzon, who also received the Abel Award, received an honorary doctorate from the Technion
The Turing Prize, known as the "Nobel of Computer Science", will be awarded to Prof. Avi Wigderzon, a graduate of the Taub Faculty of Computer Science and a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Research (IAS) in Princeton. The award is an annual award given by the ACM organization - the American Society for Computing Machinery.
In June 2023, Prof. Wigderzon received an honorary doctorate from the Technion, this "for his important contribution and leadership in the theoretical fields of computer science and discrete mathematics, including complexity theory, encryption, expanding graphs, and more; and as a token of gratitude for his long-standing ties with the Technion, which began in his undergraduate studies ".
Prof. Vigderzon, born in Haifa (1956), completed a bachelor's degree at the Taub Faculty of Computer Science at the Technion. After completing his undergraduate studies in 1980, he went on to earn a master's degree and a doctorate at Princeton, and is currently a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Over the years, he has published hundreds of articles and won a series of prizes and scholarships, including the Alon Fellowship, the Gadel Prize, the Conant Prize, the Nebelina Prize and the Abel Prize. To make the field of complexity and its connections to the theory of computer science accessible, Prof. Vigderzon wrote a book on the subject: "Mathematics and Computing - A Theory That Has Been Disrupted A revolution in technology and science".
Technion President Prof. Uri Sion He congratulated Prof. Wigderzon and said: "We are very proud of him being a graduate of the Technion and of his long-standing ties with our community of researchers. Last year we awarded him an honorary doctorate for his groundbreaking contributions in a wide range of topics from discrete and complex mathematics to cryptography. Winning the Turing Award expresses the worldwide recognition Prof. Wigderzon's extraordinary contributions and we congratulate him on the great honor and rejoice in his happiness."
Dean of the Taub Faculty of Computer Sciences, Prof. Danny Raz, said that "Prof. Wigderzon's enormous contribution to the worlds of mathematics and computing, which earned him international recognition with the Abel, Gadel, Conant and Nevelina prizes, has now led to his selection for the Nobel Prize in Computer Science, the Turing Prize. Prof. Wigderzon is a role model for our graduates - a graduate who His studies and since then he has dedicated his career to the advancement of human knowledge. As a brilliant researcher in these two fields, mathematics and computer science, and at the interface between them, he is not worthy to receive the award."
Prof. Avi Wigderzon spoke on behalf of the degree recipients at the Honorary Doctorate degree ceremony that took place as part of the events of the Cortorium - the meeting of the Technion's Board of Trustees - and said: "I have no doubt that all of us, the degree recipients, are excited to be here tonight. It is a huge honor. I would like to thank the Israeli Academy and all the people who have contributed to my career - My family, teachers and post-doctoral students. I am grateful to all the academic institutions I attended, the Technion being my alma mater. I had excellent teachers here. 1980 Edna, later my wife, in a class that dealt with solving puzzles. Here, in the synagogue at the Technion, we got married. This is where I fell in love with the theory of computer science. Investigation and logic, openness and cooperation with Israeli and global society. It is important to preserve these values."
As mentioned, in 2021, Prof. Vigderzon won the Abel Prize given by the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, together with his friend and colleague László Lovas from Ataves Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, "for their enormous contribution to the theory of computer science and discrete mathematics and for their leadership role in the design of fields These are central areas in modern mathematics." The award website states that "Prof. Wigderzon is known for his ability to discover connections between apparently unrelated fields. He deepened the connections between mathematics and computer science. There is no other single person who has made such a great contribution to the expansion and deepening of the field of theories of complexity. He conducted research on all the problems related to this field and over the years the field developed around him. The most important application of the field of complexity today is cryptography on the Internet, and Prof. Wigderzon made enormous contributions in this context as well, including research on zero-knowledge proof, which is currently used as an important basis in cryptography technologies.
