The Association for Computing Machinery on Monday named UT computer science professor Allen Emerson one of three recipients the A.M. Turing Award for his research on a quality assurance process called model checking.
"The award is considered by many the most prestigious in the industry and is known as the 'Nobel Prize in Computing' by those in the field," said Virginia Gold, public relations manager for the association.
Edmund Clarke of Carnegie Mellon University and Joseph Sifakis of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at the University of Grenoble in France also received the award for research on the same process.
Model checking is a quality assurance process that can be used in large computer systems, such as banking networks, and smaller computer systems, such as cars, airplanes and automated teller machines, to find computer bugs early on and prevent errors from happening, Emerson said.
"The motivation behind my research is that computer systems, hardware and software don't work like they're supposed to," he said. "The point is to avoid recalls of computer systems. You don't want to have to recall 200,000 cars because their computers are mis-programmed. We need them to work right the first time."
The researchers hope to expand the scope of their research so model checking can accommodate larger computing systems, Emerson said. Based on past experiences, further progress is likely.
"Without the conceptual breakthrough pioneered by these researchers, we might still be stuck with chips that have many errors and would lack the power and speed of today's equipment. This is a great example of an industry-transforming technology arising from highly theoretical research," said Stuart Feldman, president of the association.
The A.M. Turing Award was created by Alan Turing in 1966 to be the most prestigious in the computer science field. Many people recognize Turing as the father of modern computer science, Gold said.
"This year the monetary reward was increased from $100,000 to $250,000, indicating the high value it enjoys within the computing community," she said.
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