Turing Award facts for kids

Quick facts for kids ACM Turing Award
Alan Turing, after whom the award is named
Presented by	Association for Computing Machinery
Country	United States
Reward	US$1,000,000
First awarded	1966; 58 years ago (1966)
Last awarded	2023

The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the field of computer science and is often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing".

The award is named after Alan Turing, who was a British mathematician and reader in mathematics at the University of Manchester. Turing is often credited as being the founder of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence, and a key contributor to the Allied cryptanalysis of the Enigma cipher during World War II.

From 2007 to 2013, the award was accompanied by a prize of US$250,000, with financial support provided by Intel and Google. Since 2014, the award has been accompanied by a prize of US$1 million, with financial support provided by Google.

The first recipient, in 1966, was Alan Perlis, of Carnegie Mellon University. The youngest recipient was Donald Knuth who won in 1974, at the age of 36, while the oldest recipient was Alfred Aho who won in 2020, at the age of 79. Only three women have been awarded the prize: Frances Allen (in 2006), Barbara Liskov (in 2008), and Shafi Goldwasser (in 2012). As of 2024, 77 people have been awarded the prize, with the most recent recipient, in 2023, being Avi Wigderson.

Recipients

Recipients of the ACM Turing award

Year	Recipient(s)	Photo	Rationale	Affiliated institute(s)
1966	Perlis, AlanAlan Perlis	—	"For his influence in the area of advanced computer programming techniques and compiler construction"	Carnegie Mellon University
1967	Wilkes, MauriceMaurice Wilkes		"Wilkes is best known as the builder and designer of the EDSAC, the second computer with an internally stored program. Built in 1949, the EDSAC used a mercury delay line memory. He is also known as the author, with David Wheeler and Stanley Gill, of a volume on 'Preparation of Programs for Electronic Digital Computers' in 1951, in which program libraries were effectively introduced."	University of Cambridge
1968	Hamming, RichardRichard Hamming	—	"For his work on numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting and error-correcting codes"	Bell Labs
1969	Minsky, MarvinMarvin Minsky		"For his central role in creating, shaping, promoting, and advancing the field of artificial intelligence"	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1970	Wilkinson, James H.James H. Wilkinson	—	"For his research in numerical analysis to facilitate the use of the high-speed digital computer, having received special recognition for his work in computations in linear algebra and 'backward' error analysis"	National Physical Laboratory
1971	McCarthy, JohnJohn McCarthy		"McCarthy's lecture 'The Present State of Research on Artificial Intelligence' is a topic that covers the area in which he has achieved considerable recognition for his work."	Stanford University
1972	Dijkstra, Edsger W.Edsger W. Dijkstra		"Edsger Dijkstra was a principal contributor in the late 1950s to the development of the ALGOL, a high level programming language which has become a model of clarity and mathematical rigor. He is one of the principal proponents of the science and art of programming languages in general, and has greatly contributed to our understanding of their structure, representation, and implementation. His fifteen years of publications extend from theoretical articles on graph theory to basic manuals, expository texts, and philosophical contemplations in the field of programming languages."	Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Eindhoven University of Technology, University of Texas at Austin
1973	Bachman, CharlesCharles Bachman		"For his outstanding contributions to database technology"	General Electric Research Laboratory (now under Groupe Bull, an Atos company)
1974	Knuth, DonaldDonald Knuth		"For his major contributions to the analysis of algorithms and the design of programming languages, and in particular for his contributions to "The Art of Computer Programming" through his well-known books in a continuous series by this title"	California Institute of Technology, Center for Communications Research, Center for Communications and Computing, Institute for Defense Analyses, Stanford University
1975	Newell, AllenAllen Newell	—	"In joint scientific efforts extending over twenty years, initially in collaboration with J. C. Shaw at the RAND Corporation, and subsequently with numerous faculty and student colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, they have made basic contributions to artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and list processing."	RAND Corporation, Carnegie Mellon University
	Simon, Herbert A.Herbert A. Simon
1976	Rabin, Michael O.Michael O. Rabin		"For their joint paper 'Finite Automata and Their Decision Problem', which introduced the idea of nondeterministic machines, a continuous source of inspiration for subsequent work in this field"	Princeton University
	Scott, DanaDana Scott			University of Chicago
1977	Backus, JohnJohn Backus		"For profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for seminal publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages"	IBM
1978	Floyd, Robert W.Robert W. Floyd	—	"For having a clear influence on methodologies for the creation of efficient and reliable software, and for helping to found the following important subfields of computer science: the theory of parsing, the semantics of programming languages, automatic program verification, automatic program synthesis, and analysis of algorithms"	Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University
1979	Iverson, Kenneth E.Kenneth E. Iverson	—	"For his pioneering effort in programming languages and mathematical notation resulting in what the computing field now knows as APL, for his contributions to the implementation of interactive systems, to educational uses of APL, and to programming language theory and practice"	IBM
1980	Hoare, TonyTony Hoare		"For his fundamental contributions to the definition and design of programming languages"	Queen's University Belfast, University of Oxford
1981	Codd, Edgar F.Edgar F. Codd	—	"For his fundamental and continuing contributions to the theory and practice of database management systems, esp. relational databases"	IBM
1982	Cook, StephenStephen Cook		"For his advancement of our understanding of the complexity of computation in a significant and profound way"	University of Toronto
1983	Thompson, KenKen Thompson		"For their development of generic operating systems theory and specifically for the implementation of the UNIX operating system"	Bell Labs
	Ritchie, DennisDennis Ritchie
1984	Wirth, NiklausNiklaus Wirth		"For developing a sequence of innovative computer languages, EULER, ALGOL-W, Pascal, MODULA and Oberon"	Stanford University, University of Zurich, ETH Zurich
1985	Karp, Richard M.Richard M. Karp		"For his continuing contributions to the theory of algorithms including the development of efficient algorithms for network flow and other combinatorial optimization problems, the identification of polynomial-time computability with the intuitive notion of algorithmic efficiency, and, most notably, contributions to the theory of NP-completeness"	University of California, Berkeley
1986	Hopcroft, JohnJohn Hopcroft		"For fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures"	Cornell University
	Tarjan, RobertRobert Tarjan			Stanford University, Cornell University, University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University
1987	Cocke, JohnJohn Cocke	—	"For significant contributions in the design and theory of compilers, the architecture of large systems and the development of reduced instruction set computers (RISC)"	IBM
1988	Sutherland, IvanIvan Sutherland		"For his pioneering and visionary contributions to computer graphics, starting with Sketchpad, and continuing after"	Stanford University, Harvard University, University of Utah, California Institute of Technology
1989	Kahan, WilliamWilliam Kahan		"For his fundamental contributions to numerical analysis. One of the foremost experts on floating-point computations, Kahan has dedicated himself to 'making the world safe for numerical computations!'"	University of California, Berkeley
1990	Corbató, Fernando J.Fernando J. Corbató		"For his pioneering work organizing the concepts and leading the development of the general-purpose, large-scale, time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems, CTSS and Multics"	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1991	Milner, RobinRobin Milner	—	"For three distinct and complete achievements: LCF, the mechanization of Scott's Logic of Computable Functions, probably the first theoretically based yet practical tool for machine assisted proof construction; ML, the first language to include polymorphic type inference together with a type-safe exception-handling mechanism; CCS, a general theory of concurrency In addition, he formulated and strongly advanced full abstraction, the study of the relationship between operational and denotational semantics."	Stanford University, University of Edinburgh
1992	Lampson, ButlerButler Lampson		"For contributions to the development of distributed, personal computing environments and the technology for their implementation: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, displays, security and document publishing"	PARC, DEC
1993	Hartmanis, JurisJuris Hartmanis		"In recognition of their seminal paper which established the foundations for the field of computational complexity theory"	General Electric Research Laboratory (now under Groupe Bull, an Atos company)
	Stearns, Richard E.Richard E. Stearns
1994	Feigenbaum, EdwardEdward Feigenbaum		"For pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology"	Stanford University
	Reddy, RajRaj Reddy			Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University
1995	Blum, ManuelManuel Blum		"In recognition of his contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and program checking"	University of California, Berkeley
1996	Pnueli, AmirAmir Pnueli		"For seminal work introducing temporal logic into computing science and for outstanding contributions to program and systems verification"	Stanford University, Tel Aviv University, Weizmann Institute of Science, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
1997	Engelbart, DouglasDouglas Engelbart		"For an inspiring vision of the future of interactive computing and the invention of key technologies to help realize this vision"	SRI International, Tymshare, McDonnell Douglas, Bootstrap Institute/Alliance, The Doug Engelbart Institute
1998	Gray, JimJim Gray		"For seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation"	IBM, Microsoft
1999	Brooks, FredFred Brooks		"For landmark contributions to computer architecture, operating systems, and software engineering"	IBM, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
2000	Yao, AndrewAndrew Yao		"In recognition of his fundamental contributions to the theory of computation, including the complexity-based theory of pseudorandom number generation, cryptography, and communication complexity"	Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University
2001	Dahl, Ole-JohanOle-Johan Dahl	—	"For ideas fundamental to the emergence of object-oriented programming, through their design of the programming languages Simula I and Simula 67"	Norwegian Computing Center, University of Oslo
	Nygaard, KristenKristen Nygaard
2002	Rivest, RonRon Rivest		"For their ingenious contribution for making public-key cryptography useful in practice"	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Shamir, AdiAdi Shamir
	Adleman, LeonardLeonard Adleman			University of Southern California
2003	Kay, AlanAlan Kay		"For pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, leading the team that developed Smalltalk, and for fundamental contributions to personal computing"	University of Utah, PARC, Stanford University, Atari, Apple ATG, Walt Disney Imagineering, Viewpoints Research Institute, HP Labs
2004	Cerf, VintVint Cerf		"For pioneering work on internetworking, including the design and implementation of the Internet's basic communications protocols, TCP/IP, and for inspired leadership in networking"	University of California, Los Angeles, Stanford University, DARPA, MCI (now under Verizon), CNRI, Google
	Kahn, BobBob Kahn			Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bolt Beranek and Newman, DARPA, CNRI
2005	Naur, PeterPeter Naur		"For fundamental contributions to programming language design and the definition of ALGOL 60, to compiler design, and to the art and practice of computer programming"	Regnecentralen (now under Fujitsu), University of Copenhagen
2006	Allen, FrancesFrances Allen		"For pioneering contributions to the theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques that laid the foundation for modern optimizing compilers and automatic parallel execution"	IBM
2007	Clarke, Edmund M.Edmund M. Clarke		"For their roles in developing model checking into a highly effective verification technology, widely adopted in the hardware and software industries"	Harvard University, Carnegie Mellon University
	Emerson, E. AllenE. Allen Emerson			Harvard University, University of Texas at Austin
	Sifakis, JosephJoseph Sifakis			French National Centre for Scientific Research
2008	Liskov, BarbaraBarbara Liskov		"For contributions to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language and system design, especially related to data abstraction, fault tolerance, and distributed computing"	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2009	Thacker, Charles P.Charles P. Thacker		"For his pioneering design and realization of the Xerox Alto, the first modern personal computer, and in addition for his contributions to the Ethernet and the Tablet PC"	PARC, DEC, Microsoft Research
2010	Valiant, LeslieLeslie Valiant		"For 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"	Harvard University
2011	Pearl, JudeaJudea Pearl		"For fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning"	University of California, Los Angeles, New Jersey Institute of Technology
2012	Micali, SilvioSilvio Micali		"For transformative work that laid the complexity-theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography and in the process pioneered new methods for efficient verification of mathematical proofs in complexity theory"	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Goldwasser, ShafiShafi Goldwasser			Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Weizmann Institute of Science
2013	Lamport, LeslieLeslie Lamport		"For fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of distributed and concurrent systems, notably the invention of concepts such as causality and logical clocks, safety and liveness, replicated state machines, and sequential consistency"	Massachusetts Computer Associates (now under Essig PLM), SRI International, DEC, Compaq (now under HP), Microsoft Research
2014	Stonebraker, MichaelMichael Stonebraker		"For fundamental contributions to the concepts and practices underlying modern database systems"	University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2015	Diffie, WhitfieldWhitfield Diffie		"For fundamental contributions to modern cryptography. Diffie and Hellman's groundbreaking 1976 paper, 'New Directions in Cryptography', introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, which are the foundation for most regularly-used security protocols on the Internet today."	Stanford University
	Hellman, MartinMartin Hellman
2016	Berners-Lee, TimTim Berners-Lee		"For inventing the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and the fundamental protocols and algorithms allowing the Web to scale"	CERN, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, World Wide Web Consortium
2017	Hennessy, John L.John L. Hennessy		"For pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to the design and evaluation of computer architectures with enduring impact on the microprocessor industry"	Stanford University
	Patterson, DavidDavid Patterson			University of California, Berkeley
2018	Bengio, YoshuaYoshua Bengio		"For conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing"	Université de Montréal, McGill University, Mila
	Hinton, GeoffreyGeoffrey Hinton			University of Toronto, University of California, San Diego, Carnegie Mellon University, University College London, University of Edinburgh, Google AI
	LeCun, YannYann LeCun			University of Toronto, Bell Labs, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, Meta AI
2019	Catmull, EdwinEdwin Catmull		"For fundamental contributions to 3-D computer graphics, and the revolutionary impact of these techniques on computer-generated imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications"	University of Utah, Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios
	Hanrahan, PatPat Hanrahan			Pixar, Princeton University, Stanford University
2020	Aho, AlfredAlfred Aho	—	"For fundamental algorithms and theory underlying programming language implementation and for synthesizing these results and those of others in their highly influential books, which educated generations of computer scientists"	Bell Labs, Columbia University
	Ullman, JeffreyJeffrey Ullman	—		Bell Labs, Princeton University, Stanford University
2021	Dongarra, JackJack Dongarra		"For pioneering contributions to numerical algorithms and libraries that enabled high performance computational software to keep pace with exponential hardware improvements for over four decades"	Argonne National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, University of Manchester, Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study, University of Tennessee, Rice University
2022	Metcalfe, RobertRobert Metcalfe		"For the invention, standardization, and commercialization of Ethernet"	Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Xerox PARC, University of Texas at Austin
2023	Wigderson, AviAvi Wigderson		"For reshaping our understanding of the role of randomness in computation, and for decades of intellectual leadership in theoretical computer science"	Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University, HUJI

See also

In Spanish: Premio Turing para niños