SCIENCE
Vardi elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Rice University computer scientist Moshe Vardi has joined the elite group of scientists who have been elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering.
Vardi, Rice’s Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor of Computational Engineering and professor of computer science, is among 84 new National Academy of Sciencesmembers announced today. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2002.
The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and Institute of Medicine (whose name will change July 1 to National Academy of Medicine) are private, nonprofit membership organizations that elect the country’s leading scientists, engineers and medical professionals and engage in a wide variety of activities to advance research and knowledge in science, engineering and medicine. Fewer than 5 percent of National Academy members have dual membership in multiple academies.
“Moshe is very worthy of this distinctive honor, which reflects the high caliber of Rice University faculty,” Provost George McLendon said.
Vardi joined Rice’s faculty in 1993. His research interests include applications of logic to computer science, database systems, computational complexity theory, multiagent systems and specification and verification of hardware and software. He is the author or co-author of more than 500 technical articles and of two books, “Reasoning about Knowledge” and “Finite Model Theory and Its Applications.”
Vardi is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea. He is a fellow of the Association of Computing Machinery, the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. Among his prior honors are the Southeastern Universities Research Association’s 2013 Distinguished Scientist Award, the 2011 IEEE Computer Society Harry H. Goode Award, the 2008 Blaise Pascal Medal for Computer Science by the European Academy of Sciences and the 2000 Goedel Prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science.
Dual-academy membership is an honor Vardi shares with only five other faculty members throughout Rice’s 103-year history.
