American Mathematical Society Names Joseph Traub a Fellow

Joseph F. Traub

He is also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), and the New York Academy of Sciences. In 1991, he received the Emanuel R. Piore Medal from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Thus he has been honored by six rather diverse professional societies.

Traub’s numerous honors include election to the National Academy of Engineering in 1985 and the 1992 Distinguished Service Award from the Computer Research Association. He is the founder or cofounder of several scientific areas, including optimal iteration theory and information-based complexity. He is the author or editor of 10 books and more than 120 journal articles.

Traub has built a number of institutions over his longstanding career. He was head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie-Mellon University from 1971 to 1979 and founding chairman of Columbia’s Computer Science Department from 1979 to 1989. He also was the founding chair of the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) of the National Academies from 1986 to 1992 and served again as chair from 2005 to 2009. He serves as the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Complexity.

The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, which it does with various publications and conferences as well as annual monetary awards and prizes to mathematicians.