Professor Ran Raz named 2018 Simons Investigator | Computer Science Department at Princeton University

July 10, 2018

Liz Fuller-Wright, Office of Communications

Professor Ran Raz
photo by David Kelly Crow

Ran Raz, Princeton University professor of computer science, has been named a 2018 Simons Investigator in theoretical computer science by the New York-based Simons Foundation.

Raz, who researches computational complexity theory, works on Boolean and algebraic circuit complexity, communication complexity, probabilistically checkable proofs and interactive proof systems. The award cited his recent work studying “relations between communication complexity and information complexity of communication protocols” and his work on “unconditional lower bounds on the number of samples needed for learning, under memory constraints.”

The investigator awards in mathematics, physics, astrophysics and theoretical computer science provide $100,000 annually for an initial five years to “undertake long-term study of fundamental questions,” according to the foundation; an additional $10,000 per year is provided to the recipient’s department. The awards can be renewed for an additional five years.

Since the inauguration of the investigator awards in 2012, several Princeton researchers have received this honor, including CS Professor Sanjeev Arora (2012) and Moses Charikar (2014, while serving as faculty at Princeton).