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Avi Wigderson

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Avi Wigderson
אבי ויגדרזון
Wigderson in 2012
Born (1956-09-09) 9 September 1956 (age 68)
Haifa, Israel
EducationTechnion – Israel Institute of Technology
Princeton University (Ph.D.)
Known forZig-zag product, Computational complexity
AwardsNevanlinna Prize (1994)
Gödel Prize (2009)
Knuth Prize (2019)
Abel Prize (2021)
Turing Award (2023)
Scientific career
FieldsTheoretical computer science
InstitutionsInstitute for Advanced Study
ThesisStudies in Computational Complexity (1983)
Doctoral advisorRichard Lipton
Doctoral studentsDorit Aharonov
Ran Raz

Avi Wigderson (Hebrew: אבי ויגדרזון; born 9 September 1956[1]) is an Israeli computer scientist and mathematician. He is the Herbert H. Maass Professor in the school of mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, United States of America.[2] His research interests include complexity theory, parallel algorithms, graph theory, cryptography, and distributed computing.[3] Wigderson received the Abel Prize in 2021 for his work in theoretical computer science.[4] He also received the 2023 Turing Award for his contributions to the understanding of randomness in the theory of computation.[5][6]

Early life and studies

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Avi Wigderson was born in Haifa, Israel, to Holocaust survivors.[7] Wigderson is a graduate of the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa. He began his undergraduate studies at the Technion in 1977 in Haifa, graduating in 1980.[8] In the Technion he met his wife Edna.[8] He went on to graduate study at Princeton University, where he received his Ph.D in computer science in 1983 after completing a doctoral dissertation, titled "Studies in computational complexity", under the supervision of Richard Lipton.[9][10] He is credited with expanding significantly the field of ‘computational complexity’, the study of the efficiency and speed of algorithms.[8] This field has now become a subject on its own.[8]

Academic career

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After short-term positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the IBM Almaden Research Center in San Jose, California, and the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, he returned to Israel and joined the faculty of the Hebrew University in 1986. He received tenure in 1987 and became a full professor in 1991.[8] In 1999 he also took a position at the Institute for Advanced Study, and in 2003 he gave up his Hebrew University position to take up full-time residence at the IAS.[3]

Wigderson investigated Computational questions and specifically the role of randomness in the field. Wigderson together with Noam Nisan and Russell Impagliazzo discovered that for algorithms that solve problems through coin flipping, there exists an algorithm that is almost as fast that does not use coin flipping as long as presets are met.[8]

Wigderson developed the Zig Zag product together with Omer Reingold and Salil Vadhan, the Zig Zag product links complexity theory, graph theory and group theory. The Zig Zag product for example can help one understand how to get out of a maze.[8] Today complexity theory is used in cryptography.[8]

Wigderson with Silvio Micali and Oded Goldreich demonstrated that zero-knowledge proofs can be utilized in proving public results on secret data in secret.[8]

Awards and honors

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  • 2018: Elected as an ACM Fellow for "contributions to theoretical computer science and mathematics".[14]
  • 2019: The Knuth Prize for his contributions to "the foundations of computer science in areas including randomized computation, cryptography, circuit complexity, proof complexity, parallel computation, and our understanding of fundamental graph properties".[15]
  • 2021: Shared the Abel Prize with László Lovász "for their foundational contributions to theoretical computer science and discrete mathematics, and their leading role in shaping them into central fields of modern mathematics."[16][17][18]

References

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  1. ^ Wigderson, Avi (22 May 2014), Resumé (PDF), archived (PDF) from the original on 5 March 2016, retrieved 7 March 2016
  2. ^ "Faculty | IAS School of Mathematics". www.math.ias.edu. 4 August 2008. Archived from the original on 5 August 2020. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  3. ^ a b Short biography Archived 12 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine from Wigderson's web site, retrieved 3 May 2010.
  4. ^ "Avi Wigderson GS '83 awarded Abel Prize". The Princetonian. Archived from the original on 22 March 2021. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Wigderson Named Turing Awardee for Decisive Work on Randomness – Communications of the ACM". 10 April 2024. Archived from the original on 10 April 2024. Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  6. ^ a b "Avi Wigderson of the Institute for Advanced Study is the recipient of the 2023 ACM A.M. Turing Award". awards.acm.org. Archived from the original on 10 April 2024. Retrieved 10 April 2024.
  7. ^ "Avi Wigderson and the Second Golden Era of Theoretical Computing – Ideas | Institute for Advanced Study". www.ias.edu. 16 March 2021. Archived from the original on 16 March 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i "A biography of Avi Wigderson" (PDF). Mathunion. Heidelberg Laureate Foundation Portraits, interview with Avi Wigderson, 2017.
  9. ^ Wigderson, Avi (1983). Studies in computational complexity. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021. Retrieved 19 June 2020.
  10. ^ Avi Wigderson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
  11. ^ "HU Professor Wins 'Nobel Prize' Of Computers", The Jerusalem Post, 3 August 1994
  12. ^ Avi Wigderson and Colleagues Honored with 2009 Gödel Prize, Institute for Advanced Study, archived from the original on 28 May 2010, retrieved 3 May 2010
  13. ^ "Avi Wigderson". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Archived from the original on 20 April 2021. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  14. ^ 2018 ACM Fellows Honored for Pivotal Achievements that Underpin the Digital Age, Association for Computing Machinery, 5 December 2018, archived from the original on 22 June 2019, retrieved 5 December 2018
  15. ^ 2019 Knuth prize is Awarded to Avi Wigderson (PDF), ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory, 23 March 2019, archived (PDF) from the original on 5 May 2021, retrieved 5 April 2019
  16. ^ Chang, Kenneth (17 March 2021). "2 Win Abel Prize for Work That Bridged Math and Computer Science". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  17. ^ Hartnett, Kevin (17 March 2021). "Pioneers Linking Math and Computer Science Win the Abel Prize". Quanta Magazine. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
  18. ^ Castelvecchi, Davide (17 March 2021). "Abel Prize celebrates union of mathematics and computer science". Nature. doi:10.1038/d41586-021-00694-9. Archived from the original on 5 May 2021. Retrieved 17 March 2021.
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