UCLA computer science professor Judea Pearl has been named an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2015 Fellow. ACM, the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, cited him for “contributions to artificial intelligence through the development of a calculus for probabilistic and causal reasoning.” He is one of 42 fellows the association has recognized in 2015 for their exceptional contributions to the computing field.
Pearl is the creator of a computational foundation for processing information under uncertainty, a core problem faced by intelligent systems. He has developed methods that enable machines to reason about actions and observations, and to assess cause-effect relationships from empirical findings. His work serves applications ranging from medical diagnosis to homeland security.
He joined the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1970. His many honors include the A.M. Turing Award, known as the Nobel Prize for computer science. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Pearl earned a bachelor's in science degree in electrical engineering from the Technion in Israel, a master’s degree in physics from Rutgers University and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
He is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, named in honor of his son.
ACM will formally recognize its 2015 fellows at a banquet to be held in San Francisco in June.
