Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh (; az, Lütfi Rəhim oğlu Ələsgərzadə; fa, لطفی علی‌عسکرزاده; 4 February 1921 – 6 September 2017) was a mathematician, computer scientist, electrical engineer, artificial intelligence researcher, and professor of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Zadeh is best known for proposing fuzzy mathematics, consisting of several ''fuzzy''-related concepts:

fuzzy set In mathematics, fuzzy sets (a.k.a. uncertain sets) are sets whose elements have degrees of membership. Fuzzy sets were introduced independently by Lotfi A. Zadeh in 1965 as an extension of the classical notion of set. At the same time, defined ...

fuzzy logic Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth value of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1. It is employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely ...

, fuzzy algorithms, fuzzy semantics, fuzzy languages,

fuzzy control A fuzzy control system is a control system based on fuzzy logic—a mathematical system that analyzes analog input values in terms of logical variables that take on continuous values between 0 and 1, in contrast to classical or digital logic, ...

, fuzzy systems, fuzzy probabilities, fuzzy events, and fuzzy information. Zadeh was a founding member of the Eurasian Academy.

Early life and career

Azerbaijan

Zadeh was born in

Baku Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world a ...

Azerbaijan SSR Azerbaijan ( az, Азәрбајҹан, Azərbaycan, italics=no), officially the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (Azerbaijan SSR; az, Азәрбајҹан Совет Сосиалист Республикасы, Azərbaycan Sovet Sosialist R ...

, as Lotfi Aliaskerzadeh. McNeil & Freiberger, p. 17 His father was Rahim Aleskerzade, an Iranian Muslim Azerbaijani journalist from

Ardabil Ardabil (, fa, اردبیل, Ardabīl or ''Ardebīl'') is a city in northwestern Iran, and the capital of Ardabil Province. As of the 2022 census, Ardabil's population was 588,000. The dominant majority in the city are ethnic Iranian Azerbaija ...

on assignment from Iran, and his mother was Fanya (Feyga) Korenman, a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

pediatrician Pediatrics ( also spelled ''paediatrics'' or ''pædiatrics'') is the branch of medicine that involves the medical care of infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the United Kingdom, paediatrics covers many of their youth until the ...

from

Odessa, Ukraine Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrative ...

, who was an Iranian citizen.Gale, Thomson
Lotfi Asker Zadeh Biography
''World of Computer Science'' The Soviet government at this time courted foreign correspondents, and the family lived well while in Baku. McNeil & Freiberger, p. 18 Zadeh attended elementary school for three years there, which he said "had a significant and long-lasting influence on my thinking and my way of looking at things."Blair, Betty. Interview with Lotfi Zadeh (December 1999) i
"Famous People: Then and Now Lotfi Zadeh, Creator of Fuzzy Logic (1921– )"
''Azerbaijan International'' (7.4) (Winter 1999)

Iran

In 1931, when Stalin began agricultural collectivization, and Zadeh was ten, his father moved his family back to

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

, Iran. Zadeh was enrolled in

Alborz High School Mandegar Alborz High School ( fa, دبیرستان ماندگار البرز) is a college-preparatory high school located in the heart of Tehran, Iran. It is one of the first modern high schools in Asia and the Middle East, named after the Alborz ...

, a missionary school, where he was educated for the next eight years, and where he met his future wife, Fay (Faina) Zadeh, who said that he was "deeply influenced" by the "extremely decent, fine, honest and helpful"

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a part of the Reformed tradition within Protestantism that broke from the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland by John Knox, who was a priest at St. Giles Cathedral (Church of Scotland). Presbyterian churches derive their nam ...

missionaries from the United States who ran the college. "To me they represented the best that you could find in the United States – people from the Midwest with strong roots. They were really 'Good Samaritans' – willing to give of themselves for the benefit of others. So this kind of attitude influenced me deeply. It also instilled in me a deep desire to live in the United States." During this time, Zadeh was awarded several

patents A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

. Zadeh sat for the Iran national university exams and placed third in the nation. As a student, he ranked first in his class in his first two years. In 1942, he graduated from the

University of Tehran The University of Tehran (Tehran University or UT, fa, دانشگاه تهران) is the most prominent university located in Tehran, Iran. Based on its historical, socio-cultural, and political pedigree, as well as its research and teaching pro ...

with a degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, one of only three students in that field to graduate that year, due to the turmoil created by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, when the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran. Over 30,000 American soldiers were based there, and Zadeh worked with his father, who did business with them as a contractor for hardware and building materials. McNeil & Freiberger, p. 19

United States

In 1943, Zadeh decided to leave for the United States to continue his education. He travelled to

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

by way of

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

after months of delay waiting first for the proper papers and later for the right ship to appear. He arrived in mid-1944, lived in New York and worked for an electronic association, and entered the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT) as a graduate student in September that year. While in the United States, he shortened his family name, creating a new middle name from the part he removed, and was thenceforth known as Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh. He received an

MS degree MS, ms, Ms, M.S., etc. may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Ms.'' (magazine), an American feminist magazine * Metal Storm (webzine), a heavy metal website based in Estonia Businesses and organizations * MS-13, criminal gang * Missionaries ...

in electrical engineering from MIT in 1946. In 1947, as his parents had settled in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, Zadeh went to work as an engineer at Columbia University. Zadeh then applied to

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Columbia admitted him as a doctoral student and offered him an instructorship as well. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Columbia in 1949 and became an assistant professor the next year. Zadeh taught for ten years at Columbia and was promoted to

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

in 1957. The chairman of the electronic engineering department at the University of California, wrote and offered him work. In 1959, Zadeh joined the Electrical Engineering faculty at the

. During his lengthy research career, Zadeh made important scientific contributions in two distinct areas: (1) linear system theory and classical control systems, and (2) fuzzy sets, fuzzy logic, and related science and technology. Zadeh was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967 for Natural Sciences in Applied Mathematics. Zadeh's first important research contribution, well known among scholars of his generation in the electrical engineering community, was in the area of classical control systems. His pioneer work, co-authored with Charles Desoer, ''Linear System Theory: The State Space Approach,'' laid a critical foundation for all modern approaches to system analysis and control. The second and more well-known contribution of Zadeh's research is his lifelong dedication to the creation, enhancement and the real-world impacts of a broad collection of science and technology based on fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic. He published his seminal work on

fuzzy sets In mathematics, fuzzy sets (a.k.a. uncertain sets) are sets whose elements have degrees of membership. Fuzzy sets were introduced independently by Lotfi A. Zadeh in 1965 as an extension of the classical notion of set. At the same time, defined ...

in 1965, in which he described the motivation of replicating human-like reasoning and detailed the mathematics of fuzzy set theory. In 1973 he proposed his theory of

. Together, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic provide the necessary foundations for a broad class of related innovations, including (but not limited to): * fuzzy control – a practical approach to non-linear control using fuzzy if-then rules in fuzzy logic * fuzzy pattern recognition – a generalization of conventional pattern recognition techniques using fuzzy sets (e.g., fuzzy k-means generalizes k-means clustering) * fuzzy database – generalizes classical database query language using fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic * fuzzy mathematics – generalizes conventional mathematics using fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic *

neuro-fuzzy In the field of artificial intelligence, neuro-fuzzy refers to combinations of artificial neural networks and fuzzy logic. Overview Neuro-fuzzy hybridization results in a hybrid intelligent system that these two techniques by combining the human ...

systems – a synergistic combination of fuzzy logic and neural networks, providing the first interpretable AI system based on neural network learning He was also on the Board of Governors for International Neural Network Society (INNIS) in 2003.

Impacts to higher education

Zadeh became the Chair of Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1963. One of the lasting impacts of his leadership in this role is the expansion and the integration of computer science. He initiated and completed (in 1968) the transformation of the Electrical Engineering department at UC Berkeley to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). This strategic move not only led UC Berkeley's advancement into the top ranks of computer science education and research, but also led other research universities globally to add computer science to their electrical engineering departments. In 1973, Lotfi Zadeh received the prestigious (Institute of Electronic and Electrical Engineers) IEEE Education Award, largely in recognition of his performance as chair of EE and then EECS. Other important services to UC Berkeley include his Academic Senate committee memberships: Academic Planning & Resource Allocation (1992–95); Committees (1969–70; 1980–81); Courses of Instruction (1975–80); and Faculty Awards (1990–92). Professor Zadeh graduated more than 50 PhD students, many of whom went on to become leaders in various areas of engineering, management and information sciences.

Personal life and beliefs

Zadeh photographed people around him. Zadeh was called "quick to shrug off nationalism, insisting there are much deeper issues in life", and was quoted as saying in an interview: "The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else. I've been shaped by all these people and cultures, and I feel quite comfortable among all of them." He noted in the same interview: "Obstinacy and tenacity, not being afraid to get embroiled in controversy – that's very much a Turkish tradition. That's part of my character, too. I can be very stubborn. That has probably been beneficial for the development of fuzzy logic." He described himself as "an American, mathematically oriented, electrical engineer of Iranian descent, born in Russia." He and his wife Fay Zadeh had two children, Stella and Norman Zada. His wife wrote a book, ''My Life and Travels with the Father of Fuzzy Logic'' about their travels and experiences together, visiting "exotic places" and meeting interesting people around the world. Zadeh died in his home in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, on 6 September 2017, at the age of 96. He was buried at the First Alley of Honors, on 29 September 2017 in

Baku, Azerbaijan Baku (, ; az, Bakı ) is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world an ...

, the city in which he was born. His funeral was well attended by "highly respected people." A month prior to his death, the

had released an erroneous report that Zadeh had died, but withdrew it several days later.

Work

According to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

, as of November 2021, Zadeh's work has been cited at least 269,091 times in scholarly works, with the 1965 ''Fuzzy sets'' paper receiving at least 122,743 citations.

Fuzzy sets and systems

Zadeh, in his theory of

s, proposed using a

membership function In mathematics, an indicator function or a characteristic function of a subset of a set is a function that maps elements of the subset to one, and all other elements to zero. That is, if is a subset of some set , one has \mathbf_(x)=1 if x ...

(with a

range Range may refer to: Geography * Range (geographic), a chain of hills or mountains; a somewhat linear, complex mountainous or hilly area (cordillera, sierra) ** Mountain range, a group of mountains bordered by lowlands * Range, a term used to i ...

covering the interval ,1 operating on the

domain Domain may refer to: Mathematics *Domain of a function, the set of input values for which the (total) function is defined **Domain of definition of a partial function **Natural domain of a partial function **Domain of holomorphy of a function * Do ...

of all possible values. He proposed new operations for the calculus of logic and showed that

was a generalisation of classical and Boolean

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

. He also proposed fuzzy numbers as a special case of fuzzy sets, as well as the corresponding rules for consistent mathematical operations (fuzzy arithmetic).

Fuzzy logic and artificial intelligence

Zadeh's research career has had a lasting impact on artificial intelligence (AI). Fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic are both motivated by our understanding of human cognition: that we are comfortable with concepts that have vague boundaries. This is well aligned with the

Physical symbol system A physical symbol system (also called a formal system) takes physical patterns (symbols), combining them into structures (expressions) and manipulating them (using processes) to produce new expressions. The physical symbol system hypothesis (PSSH ...

assumption in AI (by

Allen Newell Allen Newell (March 19, 1927 – July 19, 1992) was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND Corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department ...

and

Herbert A. Simon Herbert Alexander Simon (June 15, 1916 – February 9, 2001) was an American political scientist, with a Ph.D. in political science, whose work also influenced the fields of computer science, economics, and cognitive psychology. His primary ...

), inspired by another aspect of human cognition: that humans are comfortable with concepts that are described by symbols. The concept of a linguistic variable in fuzzy logic connects a symbol that is typically a predicate in classical logic (e.g., "John is Bold", or in

predicate logic First-order logic—also known as predicate logic, quantificational logic, and first-order predicate calculus—is a collection of formal systems used in mathematics, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science. First-order logic uses quantifie ...

– Bold(John)) – to linguistic values (e.g., "John is somewhat bold." or in fuzzy logic – Bold(John)=Somewhat ) – which generalizes the binary value of predicate logic in two ways. First, the two possible values (True or False) in predicate logic are generalized to a continuum (typically from 0, which corresponds to False, to 1, which corresponds to True). This allows the expression of Bold(John)= 0.5, which indicates that John is midway between being devoid of boldness and being entirely bold. The second generalization enabled by fuzzy logic is to use a fuzzy set such as "somewhat bold" to describe a person's boldness level in a way that is more natural to human understanding and communication. Without this generalization, we can only describe the value of a person's boldness as a number (e.g., 0.5) or as an interval (e.g., .25, 0.75. With this generalization, one can express the semantic meaning of "somewhat bold" as a fuzzy set in the domain of 0 and 1. Zadeh was also an active contributor to the AI community, including at the

Dartmouth Workshop The Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was a 1956 summer workshop widely consideredKline, Ronald R., Cybernetics, Automata Studies and the Dartmouth Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IEEE Annals of the History of ...

that coined the term "artificial intelligence". He was subsequently a frequent contributor to leading AI conferences such as AAAI and IJCAI, as well as other top venues such as AI Magazine.

Other contributions

Zadeh is credited, along with

John R. Ragazzini John Ralph Ragazzini (January 3, 1912 – November 22, 1988) was an American electrical engineer and a professor of Electrical Engineering. Biography Ragazzini was born in Manhattan, New York City from Italian immigrants Luigi Ragazzini an ...

, in 1952, with having pioneered the development of the

Z-transform In mathematics and signal processing, the Z-transform converts a discrete-time signal, which is a sequence of real or complex numbers, into a complex frequency-domain (z-domain or z-plane) representation. It can be considered as a discrete-tim ...

method in discrete time

signal processing Signal processing is an electrical engineering subfield that focuses on analyzing, modifying and synthesizing ''signals'', such as audio signal processing, sound, image processing, images, and scientific measurements. Signal processing techniq ...

and analysis. These methods are now standard in

digital signal processing Digital signal processing (DSP) is the use of digital processing, such as by computers or more specialized digital signal processors, to perform a wide variety of signal processing operations. The digital signals processed in this manner are ...

digital control Digital control is a branch of control theory that uses digital computers to act as system controllers. Depending on the requirements, a digital control system can take the form of a microcontroller to an ASIC to a standard desktop computer. ...

, and other discrete-time systems used in industry and research. He was an editor of the ''International Journal of Computational Cognition''. Zadeh's work also included computing with words and perceptions. His later papers include "From Search Engines to Question-Answering Systems" and "Toward a Generalized Theory of Uncertainty (GTU)—An Outline".

Selected publications

A complete list of publications is available. * * * * * * * * * * * *

Awards and honors

Zadeh was a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

, the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

, the

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...

and the

International Fuzzy Systems Association International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

, and a

member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

. He was also a member of the Academies of Science of

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

Korea Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, and of the International Academy of Systems Studies in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. He received 24 honorary doctorates. Awards received by Zadeh include, among many others: *

IEEE Education Medal The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

; 1973 *

Eringen Medal The A. C. Eringen Medal or Eringen Medal is an award given annually bthe Society of Engineering Science(SES) to an individual "in recognition of sustained outstanding achievements in Engineering Science". This award was established in 1976. The ...

; 1976 *

IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal The IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal is presented annually to up to three persons, for outstanding achievements in information sciences, information systems and information technology. The recipients receive a gold medal, together with a replica in ...

, for "seminal contributions to information science and systems, including the conceptualization of fuzzy sets"; 1992 *

American Society of Mechanical Engineers The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

Rufus Oldenburger Medal The Rufus Oldenburger Medal is an award given by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognizing significant contributions and outstanding achievements in the field of automatic control. It was established in 1968 in the honor of Rufus ...

; 1993. * Honorary Professorship from the

Azerbaijan State Oil Academy Azerbaijan State Oil and Industrial University (formerly Azerbaijan State Oil Academy) ( az, Azərbaycan Dövlət Neft və Sənaye Universiteti, Азәрбајҹан Дөвләт Нефт вә Сәнаје Университети (ADNSU)) is a ter ...

; 1993 *

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contribution ...

, for "pioneering development of fuzzy logic and its many diverse applications"; 1995 *

American Automatic Control Council The American Automatic Control Council (AACC) is an organization founded in 1957 for research in control theory. AACC is a member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and is an association of the control systems divisions of ...

Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award The Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award is an annual award (since 1979) given by the American Automatic Control Council (AACC) for achievements in control theory, named after the applied mathematician Richard E. Bellman. The award is given fo ...

; 1998. * ACM Allen Newell Award; 2001 * Outstanding Contribution Award, Web Intelligence Consortium (WIC), Halifax, Canada, 2003. * Wall of Fame, Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum (HNF), Paderborn, Germany, 2004. * V. Kaufmann Prize and Gold Medal, International Association for Fuzzy-Set Management and Economy (SIGEF), Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 15, 2004. * J. Keith Brimacombe IPMM Award in recognition of his development of fuzzy set theory and fuzzy logic, 2005. * Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering from

The Franklin Institute The Franklin Institute is a science museum and the center of science education and research in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is named after the American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin. It houses the Benjamin Franklin National Memoria ...

in Philadelphia, for inventing and developing the field of "fuzzy logic"; 2009 * Induction into the

IEEE Intelligent Systems ''IEEE Intelligent Systems'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the IEEE Computer Society and sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), British Computer Society (BCS), and European As ...

' AI's Hall of Fame, 2011, "for his work on

soft computing Soft computing is a set of algorithms, including neural networks, fuzzy logic, and evolutionary algorithms. These algorithms are tolerant of imprecision, uncertainty, partial truth and approximation. It is contrasted with hard computing: al ...

, fuzzy logic, and neural-net theory". *

BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards () are an international award programme recognizing significant contributions in the areas of scientific research and cultural creation. The categories that make up the Frontiers of Knowledge Awards ...

in the category of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), Spain, 2012. * Honorary Doctor of the

Óbuda University The Óbuda University ( hu, Óbudai Egyetem, la, Universitas Budensis), named after Óbuda, a part of Budapest, is a technical university in Budapest, Hungary. It was founded in 2000 as ''Budapest Tech'' () with the merging of three polytechn ...

(

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

) 2011 *

Golden Goose Award The Golden Goose Award is a United States award in recognition of scientists whose federally funded basic research has led to innovations or inventions with significant impact on humanity or society. Created by Congressman Jim Cooper of Tennessee i ...

, for Fuzzy Logic; 2017

Legacy

In 2014, the

IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society The IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (IEEE SMCS) is a professional society of the IEEE. It aims "to serve the interests of its members and the community at large by promoting the theory, practice, and interdisciplinary aspects of systems ...

established the "Lotfi A. Zadeh Pioneer Award", which is given to honour a person or persons with "outstanding and pioneering contributions to academic and/or industrial research in systems science and engineering, human-machine systems, and/or cybernetics." The award is funded from a $100,000 donation from Zadeh's son, Norm Zadeh, and is administered by the IEEE. Nominees must have "pioneered and developed innovative research, executed in either academe or industry," that has resulted in major scientific advances in "systems science and engineering, human-machine systems, and/or cybernetics." Contributions must have been made at least 15 years prior to the award date. In February 2019,

ADA University ADA University (ADA) () is a university established under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan in March 2006 by Hafiz Pashayev. By the decree of President, ADA was transformed into university in 2014. When founded as the Azerbaijan Dip ...

presented the first "Lotfi Zadeh Scholarships", which honour the academic success of undergraduate students in the university's School of IT and Engineering. Winners of the scholarship receive a complete tuition waiver for the semester or semester-equivalent in which they achieved a 4.0 average. On 4 February 2021, the

IEEE Computational Intelligence Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

and the International Fuzzy Systems Association (IFSA) jointly celebrated the centenary of Zadeh's birth. On 30 November 2021,

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

honored Zadeh with a

Google Doodle A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and notable historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running an ...

. His seminal paper ''Fuzzy sets'' was submitted for publication on this day in 1964.

References

Citations

General bibliography

External links

, Academic profile, College of Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,

* * Dubois, Didier; Prade, Henri. * Azerbaijan International: ** Lotfi Zadeh (interview)
Reflections on the Beginnings of "Fuzzy Logic"
in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 2:4 (1994), pp. 46–47. ** Lotfi Zadeh, Berkeley Commencement Speech

in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 6:1 (Spring 1998), p. 65. **

(reflecting on his childhood) in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 7:4 (Winter 1999), pp. 28–29. ** Lotfi Zadeh:

. Azerbaijan International, Vol. 2:4 (Winter 1994), p. 49. * Lotfi Zadeh, Honorary Chair and Keynote Speaker
ICCCC 2008

Agora University of Oradea The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Ancient Greece, Greek polis, city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social a ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zadeh, Lotfali 1921 births 2017 deaths Artificial intelligence researchers Alborz High School alumni Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Control theorists Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Fellow Members of the IEEE Azerbaijani logicians American logicians American computer scientists Iranian scientists Scientists from Baku Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award recipients Systems scientists UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Columbia University faculty MIT School of Engineering alumni University of Tehran alumni Iranian electrical engineers Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Iranian expatriate academics American people of Azerbaijani-Jewish descent Soviet emigrants to Iran Iranian emigrants to the United States Soviet Azerbaijani people Burials at Alley of Honor Iranian logicians American people of Russian-Jewish descent Azerbaijani people of Iranian descent Azerbaijani people of Jewish descent

Early life and career

Azerbaijan

Iran

United States

Impacts to higher education

Personal life and beliefs

Work

Fuzzy sets and systems

Fuzzy logic and artificial intelligence

Other contributions

Selected publications

Awards and honors

Legacy

See also

References

Citations

General bibliography

Further reading

External links