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Stephen Cook
Cold Wartheory of computation

Stephen Cook

Stephen Arthur Cook is an American-Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who has made significant contributions

1939 – presentU.S.AContribution: 1967

Introduction

Stephen Cook (born 1939) is a Canadian computer scientist and mathematician. He is best known for his development of the concept of NP-completeness and the Cook-Levin theorem, which provided a foundation for understanding the difficulty of solving computational problems. Cook's work has had a profound impact on theoretical computer science and algorithms.

Key Achievement

Formalized the notion of NP-completeness, inspiring a great deal of research in computational complexity theory

Biography

Stephen Arthur Cook is an American-Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who has made significant contributions to the fields of complexity theory and proof complexity. He is a university professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics.

Awards

Turing Award1982
Gödel Lecturer1999
CRM-Fields-PIMS prize1999
John L. Synge Award2006
ACM Fellow2008
Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering2012
Order of Ontario2013
BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award2015
Officer of the Order of Canada2015
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
Fellow of the Royal Society

Institutions

University of Toronto

University of California, Berkeley

Education

University of Michigan

Harvard University