"For contributions bridging computer science and biology through research in computational learning theory, computational biology, and bioinformatics leading to major influences on the understanding of biological macromolecules and the investigation of the human genome."
ABOUT THIS AWARD
The ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award is presented to an individual selected for career contributions that have breadth within computer science, or that bridge computer science and other disciplines. This award is accompanied by a prize of $10,000, provided by ACM and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and by individual contributions.
Yoav Shoham and Moshe Tennenholtz named recipients of the 2012 ACM/AAAI Allen Newell Award
Yoav Shoham and Moshe Tennenholtz were recognized for contributions to multiagent systems spanning computer science, game theory, and economics. Shoham's pioneering work provided a methodology for specifying distributed multiagent systems. His research on game theory includes advances in combinatorial auctions, where participants place bids on combinations of discrete items. He also advanced mechanism design, sometimes known as reverse game theory, which sets formal rules that design a game as well as predicting how a game will be played. Shoham, professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, is a former director of Stanford's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), co-author (with Kevin Leyton-Brown) of Multiagent Systems: Algorithmic, Game-Theoretic, and Logical Foundations, a widely-praised textbook on multiagent systems, and the founder of several e-commerce software companies.
Tennenholtz pioneered several approaches to the design and analysis of interactions between decision-makers in computational settings. He also created RMax, a general efficient algorithm applicable to learning by interacting with an environment. In addition, he introduced the concept of program equilibrium, an ingenious application of computer science to the analysis of Internet economies. He is acknowledged as a central contributor to many of Microsoft's pricing algorithms for online advertising. He holds the Sondheimer Chair at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, and is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research Israel.