Christos Papadimitriou

Christos Papadimitriou is the Donovan Family Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, where he has worked since 2017. Prior to this, he served as the C. Lester Hogan Professor at UC Berkeley for 22 years and held academic positions at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and the National Technical University of Athens.

• Education: BS in Electrical Engineering from Athens Polytechnic (1972), PhD from Princeton University (1976).
• Research Focus: Algorithms, computational complexity, and interdisciplinary applications in biology, economics, and neuroscience.

His work applies the algorithmic lens to diverse fields, including evolution, game theory (he co-founded algorithmic game theory), robotics, and brain modeling. Since 2013, he has focused on computational models of the brain and language acquisition.

Recent publications center on medical applications of computational methods, such as genetic testing, NGS panels, and cancer biomarker detection, reflecting his interdisciplinary approach.

• Scientific Honors:
  • Member of National Academy of Sciences and Engineering.
  • Fellow of American Association for Arts and Sciences.
  • Knuth Prize (2002), Gödel Prize (2012), EATCS Award (2015), IEEE John von Neumann Medal (2016), Technion Harvey Prize (2019), IEEE John von Neumann Theory Prize (2024).

As a dedicated educator, he authored seminal textbooks like Computational Complexity and Algorithms, alongside novels such as Logicomix and Independence. His email is christos@columbia.edu.