Alumnus Alfred Aho wins A.M. Turing Award
Published: April 1, 2021
University of Toronto Engineering alumnus Alfred Aho and his collaborator, Jeffrey Ullman, are the 2020 A.M. Turing Award recipients.
They received the award – widely considered the Nobel Prize of computing – for their influential work in algorithms and compilers.
“It’s impossible to overstate the significance of Professor Aho’s foundational contributions to programming and software engineering,” says Professor Will Cluett, director of Engineering Science. “He is a towering figure in the field, and an inspiration to classes of Engineering Science students, past, present and future.”
Aho, the Lawrence Gussman Professor Emeritus of computer science at Columbia University, graduated from U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering in 1963 and received an honorary degree from U of T in 2015.
“The software researchers develop today would not be possible without the fundamental work of Alfred Aho and Jeffrey Ullman. They helped define the modern programming industry, and therefore shaped the very world around us,” says Professor Chris Yip, dean of U of T Engineering. “On behalf of U of T Engineering, my enthusiastic congratulations on this incredibly prestigious recognition.
“We have long been tremendously proud to call Professor Aho a U of T Engineering alumnus.”
