UCLA Computer Science Professor Judea Pearl Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society

Judea Pearl, chancellor’s professor of computer science at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, has been elected to the United Kingdom’s Royal Society, widely recognized as one of the most prestigious scholarly societies in the world.

The society announced today its more than 90 new fellows and foreign members. Pearl was recognized for his fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence, particularly his pioneering work in causal reasoning. His development of Bayesian networks has enabled scientists and engineers to analyze cause-and-effect relationships under uncertain circumstances, such as determining the likelihood that a certain treatment prevents a specific disease. By developing a structured mathematical framework for modeling uncertainty and causation, Pearl has led advances across many disciplines, including statistics, medicine, law and public policy.

Pearl received the 2011 Association for Computer Machinery A.M. Turing Award — often referred to as the Nobel Prize of computing. He is also a recipient of the David E. Rumelhart Prize — one of the highest honors in cognitive science, and the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, and has received six honorary doctorates. According to his Google Scholar profile, Pearl’s scientific publications has been cited more than 150,000 times, including more than 50,000 citations in the past five years.

Founded in 1660 in London, the Royal Society is considered the world’s oldest scientific academy. Each year, up to 85 fellows and 24 foreign members are elected for their substantial contributions to the “improvement of natural knowledge, including mathematics, engineering science and medical science” on a global and enduring scale.

Pearl joins a long lineage of luminaries across science and mathematics spanning more than 350 years. Historical figures elected to the society include Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, and Alan Turing — the namesake of the Turing Award.

Current Royal Society fellows or foreign members affiliated with UCLA Samueli include distinguished chancellor’s professor of computer science Demetri Terzopoulos, professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering Emily Carter, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering Mihaela van der Schaar and adjunct professor of electrical and computer engineering Eli Yablonovitch.