2012 Waterman Award

美国国家科学基金会(NSF)很高兴地宣布，麻省理工学院电气工程和计算机科学副教授Scott Aaronson被选为2012年度Alan T.Watman奖获得者。亚伦森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。该年度奖项表彰NSF支持的任何科学或工程领域中年龄在35岁以下的杰出研究人员。这是第一年评选出两位获奖者。除了一枚奖牌外，今年的获奖者还将获得100万美元的奖金-是去年奖金的两倍-在五年内继续在他的领域进一步深造。Aaronson是一位理论计算科学家，他追求的研究兴趣集中在量子计算机的局限性和更广泛的计算复杂性理论上。他的研究涉及多种主题，包括量子态的信息含量，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，即是否每个问题的解都能被计算机快速验证，也能被计算机快速解决。

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.