Andrew Yao facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Andrew Chi-Chih Yao
|
|||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 姚期智 | |||||||||
.jpg) |
|||||||||
| Born | December 24, 1946 |
||||||||
| Citizenship |
|
||||||||
| Alma mater | National Taiwan University (BS) Harvard University (PhD) University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign (PhD) |
||||||||
| Known for | Yao's Principle | ||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Frances Yao | ||||||||
| Awards | Pólya Prize (SIAM) (1987) Knuth Prize (1996) Turing Award (2000) Kyoto Prize (2021) |
||||||||
| Scientific career | |||||||||
| Fields | Computer science | ||||||||
| Institutions | Massachusetts Institute of Technology Stanford University University of California, Berkeley Princeton University Tsinghua University Chinese University of Hong Kong |
||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Chinese | 姚期智 | ||||||||
|
|||||||||
Andrew Chi-Chih Yao (Chinese: 姚期智; pinyin: Yáo Qīzhì) was born on December 24, 1946. He is a famous Chinese computer scientist. He studies how computers work and how to solve problems with them.
Today, he is a professor at Tsinghua University in China. He also leads the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS) there. Andrew Yao is known for something called Yao's Principle. This principle helps us understand how hard it is for computers to solve certain problems.
He studied at National Taiwan University. Then, he earned two Ph.D. degrees. One was from Harvard University and the other from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. For many years, he worked in the United States. In 2015, he became a citizen of China again.
Early Life and School
Andrew Yao was born in Shanghai, China. He first studied physics at National Taiwan University. In 1972, he got his first Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University. Later, in 1975, he earned a second Ph.D. in computer science. This degree was from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.
His Work in Computer Science
Andrew Yao started his teaching career in 1975. He was an assistant professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Then he taught at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. From 1986 to 2004, he was a professor at Princeton University. There, he focused on algorithms and computational complexity. Algorithms are like step-by-step instructions for computers. Complexity is about how much time or memory a computer needs to follow those instructions.
In 2004, Professor Yao moved to Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. He became a professor and director of the Institute for Theoretical Computer Science (ITCS). Since 2010, he has been the Dean of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (IIIS). He also helped start a big meeting called the Conference on Innovations in Theoretical Computer Science. He is also a special professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
In 2024, Andrew Yao joined other top AI researchers. They wrote a paper about the possible risks of artificial intelligence (AI). They said that research into AI safety needs to catch up. They also suggested ways for leaders to manage AI as it grows.
Awards and Honors
Andrew Yao has received many important awards for his work.
- In 1996, he won the Knuth Prize.
- In 2000, he received the Turing Award. This award is often called the "Nobel Prize" for computer science. He won it for his important ideas about how computers work. This includes how computers create pseudorandom numbers (numbers that seem random but are not). It also includes his work on cryptography, which is about secure communication.
- In 2021, he was given the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology.
Professor Yao is a member of the U.S. United States National Academy of Sciences. He is also a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His wife, Frances Yao, is also a computer scientist.
See also
In Spanish: Andrew Chi-Chih Yao para niños
- Dolev-Yao model
- Garbled circuit
- Hybrid argument
- Yao's Millionaires' Problem
- Yao's principle
- Yao's test
- Yao graph
