CMU Visiting Faculty Member 1973-74

Leslie G. Valiant, an innovator in machine learning who was a visiting assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University in 1973-74, is the winner of the Association for Computing Machinery's 2010 A.M Turing Award. He is the T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), where he has been a faculty member since 1982.

The award recognizes Valiant for his transformative contributions to the theory of computation, including the theory of probably approximately correct (PAC) learning, the complexity of enumeration and of algebraic computation, and the theory of parallel and distributed computing. For more details, see the ACM award committee's full citation.

"Leslie Valiant's accomplishments over the last 30 years have provided the theoretical basis for progress in artificial intelligence and led to extraordinary achievements in machine learning. His work has produced modeling that offers computationally inspired answers on fundamental questions like how the brain 'computes,' said ACM President Alain Chesnais. "His profound vision in computer science, mathematics, and cognitive theory have been combined with other techniques to build modern forms of machine learning and communication, like IBM's 'Watson' computing system, that have enabled computing systems to rival a human's ability to answer questions."

Valiant spoke at the School of Computer Science's CS50 celebration in 2006. A video of his talk, "Does AI Need a Theory?" can be viewed online.

His Turing win brings the number of CMU faculty and former faculty members to receive computing's highest honor to nine. Those Turing laureates include three current faculty members - Raj Reddy, Manuel Blum and Edmund M. Clarke - and Dana Scott, professor emeritus.

Valiant is a graduate of Kings College, University of Cambridge, with a BA in Mathematics, and Imperial College London, where he received a Diploma of the Imperial College (DIC) in Computer Science. He earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Warwick.

A recipient of the Nevanlinna Prize from the International Mathematical Union in 1986, Valiant was awarded the 1997 Knuth Prize from the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) and the IEEE Technical Committee on the Mathematical Foundations of Computing. In 2008, he received the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science Award. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (London), a Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).