Professor Madhu Sudan
Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science, MIT

Madhu Sudan, whose research is in "an area in the nexus of computer science, communication and mathematics," won the award for his work in algebraic methods in error-correction.

"The importance and relevance of this area is slowly starting to penetrate into the culture of science and I consider myself fortunate to have encountered this area at a relatively early stage of my research," he adds.

A 1987 computer science graduate from IIT-New Delhi, he did his PhD in 1992 from the University of California at Berkeley. After joining MIT in 1997, he was promoted to professor in 2003.

Sudan says he is "deeply interested in understanding when, why, how seemingly simple tasks for computers end up being hopelessly hard; and how sometimes seemingly hopelessly hard problems end up finding unexpectedly efficient solutions."

"I am interested in designing efficient algorithms for solving some basic tasks on computers," he says. "One such basic task is that of correcting communication errors."

He illustrates his meaning with the example of cell phones. "When you use a cell phone, often you hear a lot of static or the communication breaking up. Cellular phones have little computers sitting in them trying to correct errors as they happen. They are not yet up to the challenge. Designing good methods to recover from error needs a good understanding of mathematics and algorithms. This is the applied side of my research interest."