Winners of the Inaugural WLA Prize Announced RMB 10 Million

Shanghai, Sept. 30, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The 2022 WLA Prize Laureates are:

• Michael I. JORDAN, the 2022 WLA Prize Laureate in Computer Science or Mathematics, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences & Department of Statistics, UC Berkeley.

–“For fundamental contributions to the foundations of machine learning and its application.”

About the Laureate

Prof. Michael I. Jordan has been a world-leading researcher in the field of statistical machine learning for nearly four decades. His contributions to the interface between computer science and statistics include the variational approach to statistical inference and learning, inference methods based on graphical models and Bayesian non-parametrics, and characterizations of trade-offs between statistical risk and computational complexity.

He has also worked at the interface between optimization and machine learning, where he is well known for his development of continuous-time models of gradient-based optimization and sampling, and his work on distributed systems for optimization. He has built bridges between machine learning and control theory, contributing to the theory of reinforcement learning, learning-based model predictive control, and optimality principles for human motor control. 

He has also led the way in bringing microeconomic concepts into contact with machine learning, developing learning methods that incentivize learners to share data, showing how contract theory can be employed for statistical inference, and contributing to the study of learning-based matching markets. He has also pursued numerous high-impact applications of machine learning in domains such as single-molecule imaging, protein modeling, genetic admixture modeling, and natural language processing.

Prof. Jordan’s contributions to computer science are also evident in education. He has mentored over 80 PhD students and over 60 postdoctoral researchers, an influential cohort who…