Mathematical Sciences Professor Alan Frieze Named University Professor
By Jocelyn Duffy
The faculty members were nominated and recommended for the title of University Professor by academic leaders and the community of CMU University Professors.
"University Professors are distinguished by international recognition and for their contributions to education, artistic creativity and/or research. Alan, Martin, and Susan each exemplify this high level of achievement and commitment to both the university and the broader academic communities," said CMU Provost Farnam Jahanian.
Frieze is one of the founders of the field of random discrete structures and has remained at the forefront of that field for 35 years. His randomized algorithms have been used to solve important questions in computer science and his work has impacted diverse fields, including business and information networking.
In 1991, he received the prestigious Fulkerson Prize for his work on computing the volume of a convex body. His contributions to graph theory led to a plenary address at the quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians in 2014, a degree of recognition accorded to only a handful of mathematicians. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Frieze is a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics and a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
He has developed innovative new curriculum at CMU, cofounding the interdisciplinary Algorithms, Combinatorics and Optimization Ph.D. program, which currently has 21 Ph.D. students across three schools and colleges