Dexter Campbell Kozen (born December 20, 1951) is an American theoretical

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...

. He is Joseph Newton Pew, Jr. Professor in Engineering at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. He received his B.A. from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

in 1974 and his PhD in computer science in 1977 from Cornell University, where he was advised by

Juris Hartmanis Juris Hartmanis (July 5, 1928 – July 29, 2022) was a Latvian-born American computer scientist and computational theorist who, with Richard E. Stearns, received the 1993 ACM Turing Award "in recognition of their seminal paper which establishe ...

. He advised numerous Ph.D. students. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, a

Guggenheim Fellow Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, and has received an Outstanding Innovation Award from IBM Corporation. He has also been named Faculty of the Year by the Association of Computer Science Undergraduates at Cornell. Dexter Kozen was one of the first professors to receive the honor of a professorship at The Radboud Excellence Initiative at

Radboud University Nijmegen Radboud University (abbreviated as RU, nl, Radboud Universiteit , formerly ''Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen'') is a public research university located in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The university bears the name of Saint Radboud, a 9th century ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. He is known for his work at the intersection of

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 prem ...

and

complexity Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to nonlinearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence. The term is generally used to ch ...

. He is one of the fathers of dynamic logic and developed the version of the

modal μ-calculus In theoretical computer science, the modal μ-calculus (Lμ, Lμ, sometimes just μ-calculus, although this can have a more general meaning) is an extension of propositional modal logic (with many modalities) by adding the least fixed point opera ...

most used today. Moreover, he has written several textbooks on the

theory of computation In theoretical computer science and mathematics, the theory of computation is the branch that deals with what problems can be solved on a model of computation, using an algorithm, how algorithmic efficiency, efficiently they can be solved or t ...

automata theory Automata theory is the study of abstract machines and automata, as well as the computational problems that can be solved using them. It is a theory in theoretical computer science. The word ''automata'' comes from the Greek word αὐτόματο� ...

, dynamic logic, and

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

s. Kozen was a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in the band "Harmful if Swallowed". He also holds the position of faculty advisor for Cornell's rugby football club and plays for the Cortland Homer Thundering Herd rugby team.

Awards and Honors

* John G. Kemeny Prize in Computing, Dartmouth College)] (1974) * Outstanding Innovation Award, IBM Corporation) (1974) * Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (1991) * Prize ''Nagrode'', Polish Ministry of Education, for paper (1993) * Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell (2001) * Prize ''Nagrode'', Polish Ministry of Education, for paper (1993) * List of Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Fellow, For contributions to theoretical computer science (2003) * Fellow, AAAS (2008) * 2001 LICS Test-of-Time Award for the paper (2011) * Fellow, EATCS (2016) * McDowell Award, for groundbreaking contributions to topics ranging from computational complexity to the analysis of algebraic computations to logics of programs and verification (2016) * Weiss Presidential Fellow (2018) * POPL Distinguished Paper Award for the paper ''Guarded Kleene algebra with tests: verification of uninterpreted programs in nearly linear time'' (2020) * Alonzo Church Award, for his fundamental work on developing the theory and applications of Kleene Algebra with Tests, an equational system for reasoning about iterative programs, published in the paper

References

External links

Dexter Kozen's homepage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kozen, Dexter Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Living people Theoretical computer scientists Cornell University faculty Cornell University alumni Dartmouth College alumni American computer scientists 1951 births