JudithBehan6 at 04:17, 17 March 2026

2026-03-17T04:17:30Z

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{{Short description|Indian-American computer scientist (born 1966)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{Use Indian English|date=November 2018}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Madhu Sudan
| image = Madhu Sudan Oberwolfach 2015.jpg
| image_size =
| alt =
| caption = Sudan at [[Mathematisches Forschungsinstitut Oberwolfach|Oberwolfach]] in 2015
| landscape =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=yes|1966|09|12}}
| birth_place = [[Madras]], India<ref name="nevanlinna"/>
| death_date =
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| residence =
| citizenship =
| nationality =
| fields =
| workplaces =
| education = [[IIT Delhi]] ([[BTech]])<br> [[University of California, Berkeley]] ([[PhD]])
| doctoral_advisor = [[Umesh Vazirani]]
| academic_advisors =
| doctoral_students = [[Venkatesan Guruswami]]<br>[[Benjamin Rossman]]<br>[[Ryan O'Donnell (computer scientist)|Ryan O'Donnell]]
| notable_students =
| thesis_title = Efficient Checking of Polynomials and Proofs and the Hardness of Approximation Problems
| thesis_year = 1992
| thesis_url = https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60615-7
| known_for =
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| influences =
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| awards = {{ Plainlist|
*[[Gödel Prize]] (2001)
*[[Nevanlinna Prize]] (2002)
*[[Infosys Prize]] (2014)
* [[IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal]] (2022)}}
| signature = 
| signature_alt =
| footnotes =
| spouse =
}}

'''Madhu Sudan''' (born 12 September 1966)<ref name="nevanlinna"/> is an Indian-American [[computer scientist]]. He has been a Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at the [[Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences]] since 2015.

==Career==
He received his bachelor's degree in computer science from [[IIT Delhi]] in 1987<ref name="nevanlinna"/> and his doctoral degree in computer science at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] in 1992.<ref name="nevanlinna"/><ref>{{mathgenealogy|id=72850}}</ref> The dissertation he wrote at the University of California, Berkeley is titled ''Efficient Checking of Polynomials and Proofs and the Hardness of Approximation Problems''. He was a research staff member at the [[IBM]] [[Thomas J. Watson Research Center]] in [[Yorktown Heights, New York]] from 1992 to 1997 and became a researcher at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] (MIT) after that.<ref name="nevanlinna"/> From 2009 to 2015 he was a permanent researcher at [[Microsoft Research]] New England before joining the [[Harvard University]] faculty in 2015.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Madhu Sudan's Home Page |url=https://madhu.seas.harvard.edu/ |access-date=2023-12-12 |website=madhu.seas.harvard.edu}}</ref>

==Research contribution and awards==
In 1998, he received the [[Sloan Research Fellowship]].<ref>{{cite web | title=Fellows Database | website=Sloan Foundation | url=https://sloan.org/fellows-database | access-date=2024-03-23}}</ref> He was awarded the Rolf [[Nevanlinna Prize]] at the 24th [[International Congress of Mathematicians]] (ICM) in 2002. The prize recognizes outstanding work in the [[mathematics|mathematical]] aspects of computer science. Sudan was honored for his work in advancing the theory of [[probabilistically checkable proof]]s—a way to recast a mathematical proof in computer language for additional checks on its validity—and developing [[error-correcting code]]s.<ref name="nevanlinna">{{citation|title=Madhu Sudan Receives Nevanlinna Prize|journal=Notices of the American Mathematical Society|volume=49|issue=10|date=October 2002|url=https://www.ams.org/notices/200210/comm-nevanlinna.pdf|page=1266|department=Mathematics People}}.</ref> For the same work, he received the [[Association for Computing Machinery|ACM]]'s Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award in 1993 and the [[Gödel Prize]] in 2001 and was an Invited Speaker of the ICM in 1998.<ref>{{cite book|author=Sudan, Madhu|chapter=Probabilistic verification of proofs|title=Doc. Math. (Bielefeld) Extra Vol. ICM Berlin, 1998, vol. III|year=1998|pages=461–470|chapter-url=https://www.elibm.org/ft/10011602000}}</ref> He is a Fellow of the ACM (2008).<ref>[http://people.csail.mit.edu/madhu/bio.txt Biography]</ref> In 2012 he became a fellow of the [[American Mathematical Society]].<ref>[https://www.ams.org/profession/fellows-list List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society], retrieved 2013-08-05.</ref> In 2014 he won the [[Infosys Prize]] in the mathematical sciences.<ref name="infosys">[http://www.infosys-science-foundation.com/prize/laureates/2014/madhu-sudan.asp Madhu Sudan], Infosys Prize Laureates, retrieved 2015-02-28.</ref>
In 2017 he was elected to the [[National Academy of Sciences]].<ref>[http://www.nasonline.org/news-and-multimedia/news/may-2-2017-NAS-Election.html National Academy of Sciences Members and Foreign Associates Elected], [[National Academy of Sciences]], 2 May 2017.</ref>
In 2021, he was awarded the [[IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal]] for 2022.<ref>{{Cite web |title=IEEE RICHARD W. HAMMING MEDAL RECIPIENTS |url=https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/awards/recipients/hamming-rl.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211216193823/https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/awards/recipients/hamming-rl.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=16 December 2021 |website=IEEE}}</ref>

Sudan has made important contributions to several areas of theoretical computer science, including probabilistically checkable proofs, non-approximability of [[Optimization (mathematics)|optimization]] problems, [[Guruswami–Sudan list decoding algorithm|list decoding]], and error-correcting codes.<ref name="infosys"/>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
*[http://dblp.uni-trier.de/db/indices/a-tree/s/Sudan:Madhu.html DBLP: Madhu Sudan]
*[http://people.csail.mit.edu/madhu Madhu Sudan's Home Page]
*[http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/newengland/bios.aspx Bio from the Microsoft Research New England page]

{{Gödel winners}}
{{Nevanlinna Prize winners}}
{{Richard W. Hamming Medal recipients}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sudan, Madhu}}
[[Category:1966 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Indian computer scientists]]
[[Category:Indian emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:American computer scientists]]
[[Category:Theoretical computer scientists]]
[[Category:20th-century Indian mathematicians]]
[[Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty]]
[[Category:Gödel Prize laureates]]
[[Category:Nevanlinna Prize laureates]]
[[Category:American people of Indian Tamil descent]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Mathematical Society]]
[[Category:IIT Delhi alumni]]
[[Category:Scientists from Chennai]]
[[Category:American academics of Indian descent]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences faculty]]
[[Category:Simons Investigator]]
[[Category:Sloan Research Fellows]]

Madhu Sudan - Revision history

JudithBehan6 at 04:17, 17 March 2026