"Halpern co-authored three books and contributed to more than 300 research papers over the course of his 45-year career. "He was a towering figure in theoretical computer science and a beloved faculty member," said Lorenzo Alvisi, the Tisch University Professor in Computer Science and chair of the Department of Computer Science in the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. "Joe was as close to the ideal of a Renaissance man as I have met.""
"Halpern traveled extensively, spoke five languages, summited Kilimanjaro and filled his days with music. Professionally, he was a polymath - he pursued varied academic interests and, in turn, pushed the boundaries of what it means to be a computer scientist. During a talk at Princeton University, Halpern described himself as "someone with a Ph.D. in mathematics, who calls himself a computer scientist, [who] is giving a talk to economists about a subject mainly studied by philosophers.""
Joseph "Joe" Halpern died Feb. 13 in Ithaca at age 72. He spent 30 years as a Cornell professor and mentor, influencing generations of students. He received top honors including the Gödel Prize, the Edsger Dijkstra Prize and the Allen Newell Award. His research spanned reasoning about knowledge and uncertainty, causality, and multi-agent and distributed systems. He co-authored three books and contributed to more than 300 research papers across a 45-year career. He traveled extensively, spoke five languages, summited Kilimanjaro, pursued music, and combined mathematics, computer science, philosophy and economics to expand the field.
#theoretical-computer-science #knowledge-and-uncertainty #causality #distributed-systems #academic-mentorship
Read at Cornell Chronicle
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]