2012 Waterman Award

美国国家科学基金会（NSF）很高兴地宣布选择麻省理工学院的斯科特·阿伦森，电气工程和计算机科学副教授，接受其2012年艾伦·T。沃特曼奖 Aaronson博士在麻省理工学院最大的跨部门实验室计算机科学和人工智能实验室工作。沃特曼奖是美国国家科学基金会（NSF）的最高荣誉。该年度奖项旨在表彰NSF支持的任何科学或工程领域35岁以下的杰出研究人员。这是第一次有两名获奖者被选中。除了奖牌外，今年的获奖者还将获得100万美元的资助，这是去年的两倍，用于在五年内进一步研究其领域。Aaronson教授是理论计算科学家，他的研究兴趣集中在量子计算机的局限性和计算复杂性理论上。 他的研究涉及各种主题，包括量子态的信息内容，量子计算机超越经典计算机所需的物理资源，以及解决计算机科学中令人烦恼的P与NP问题的障碍，即是否每个可以通过计算机快速验证解决方案的问题也可以通过计算机快速解决。

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is pleaserd to announce the selection of MIT's Scott Aaronson, an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, to receive its 2012 Alan T. Waterman Award. Dr. Aaronson works with the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, MIT's largest interdepartmental lab. The Waterman Award is the National Science Foundation's (NSF) highest honor. The annual award recognizes outstanding researchers under the age of 35 in any field of science or engineering NSF supports. This is the first year that two awardees have been selected. In addition to a medal, each of this year's awardees will receive a $1 million grant---twice the amount of last year's award---over a five-year period for further advanced study in his field.Prof. Aaronson, a theoretical computational scientist, pursues research interests that focus on the limitations of quantum computers and computational complexity theory more generally. His research addresses a variety of topics, including the information content of quantum states, the physical resources needed for quantum computers to surpass classical computers, and the barriers to solving computer science's vexing P versus NP question, that is, whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified by a computer can also be quickly solved by a computer.