Moshe Vardi to receive IEEE Goode Award

By Eli Spector     4/14/11 7:00pm

The IEEE Computer Society announced on March 24 that Computer Science Professor Moshe Vardi won its 2011 Harry H. Goode Memorial Award, presented to individuals who have made a significant and lasting contribution to the information processing field, for his body of research on logic as a computational tool.

Vardi will travel to Albuquerque in May to receive the award, which includes a bronze medal and $2,000 honorarium.

For Vardi, who was named a fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences last April, the Goode Award recognizes his place in the discipline of computer science.

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"When you look at the past recipients [of the award]," Vardi said, "it's an absolutely amazing list of people — a list of luminaries, really."

Vardi joins the ranks of Howard Aiken, Konrad Zeus and over 40 other pioneers in the field of computer science since the award was first issued in 1964.

Vardi said he wields logic for a wide variety of uses, such as artificial intelligence, electronic databases and systems design.

"The logical discipline was invented in the fourth century B.C., and 2,000 years later, it turns out to be relevant to cutting-edge technology. It's an amazing intellectual story."

Vardi credits his successes to the flexibility given to professors at Rice and to his collaborators. Throughout his academic career, Vardi has published papers with 191 scholars, both domestic and international.

Working with Vardi can be highly enriching, graduate student Seth Fogarty, who is part of Vardi's research group, said.

"Working with Moshe is like you work hard for weeks, and then a 10 minute meeting with him changes everything," Fogarty said. "Moshe is very patient and very honest."

Vardi has witnessed the growth of the Computer Science Department since he began teaching at Rice in 1993.

"I have no doubt that we are heading to implanting computers in the brain, though it's so hard to imagine the future," Vardi said.

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