Judea Pearl, chancellor’s professor of computer science at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been elected to the United Kingdom’s Royal Society, widely recognized as one of the most prestigious scholarly societies in the world.
Each year, up to 85 fellows and 24 foreign members are elected for their contributions to the “improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science” on a global and enduring scale. The society on May 20 announced its new fellows and foreign members. Pearl was recognized for his fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence, particularly his pioneering work in causal reasoning.
His development of Bayesian networks has enabled scientists and engineers to analyze cause-and-effect relationships under uncertain circumstances, such as determining the likelihood that a certain treatment prevents a specific disease. By developing a structured mathematical framework for modeling uncertainty and causation, Pearl has led advances across many disciplines, including statistics, medicine, law and public policy.
Pearl received the 2011 Association for Computer Machinery A.M. Turing Award — often referred to as the Nobel Prize of computing. He is also a recipient of the David E. Rumelhart Prize and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies. He is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.
