Avi Wigderson
Institute for Advanced Study
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Primary Section: 34, Computer and Information Sciences Secondary Section: 11, Mathematics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2013)
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Biosketch
Avi Wigderson is a Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study since 1999, where he leads the Institute's Computer Science and Discrete Math Program. He received his PhD in computer science in 1983 from Princeton University. During 1986-2001 he has held a permanent position at the Hebrew University Computer Science Institute, where he was the chair from 1992-95. Avi has held visiting positions at the University of California, Berkeley, IBM Research, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. His honors include being a two-time invited speaker at the International Congress of Mathematicians, where he was also presented in 1994 with the Nevanlinna Prize for outstanding contributions in mathematical aspects of information sciences. Avi gave the AMS Gibbs Lectures and received the AMS Conant Prize for mathematical exposition in 2008. He was the recipient of the 2009 Gödel Prize, which recognizes outstanding papers in theoretical computer science. In 2011 Avi was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2013 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
Research Interests
Avi Wigderson works in the Theory of Computation, a field which studies the mathematical foundations of computer science. He is interested in the broad aspects of this exciting and rapidly developing field, including algorithms, Boolean and arithmetic circuit complexity, communication and proof complexity, cryptography, randomness, as well as the interactions of the field with other sciences including mathematics, physics, biology, and economics.
