Greek MIT Professor wins prestigious International Maths Award

Greek mathematician and MIT professor Constantinos Daskalakis won the 2018 Rolf Nevanlinna Prize, one of the most prestigious international awards in mathematics.

The 37-year-old professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and principal investigator at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, a decade ago solved Nash’s “riddle”, and was honored by the International Mathematical Union (IMU) for “transforming our understanding of the computational complexity of fundamental problems in markets, auctions, equilibria, and other economic structures.”  Τhe prize is awarded every four years to a scientist under 40 who has made major contributions to the mathematical aspects of computer science and it comes with a monetary prize of 10,000 euros.

“Costis combines amazing technical virtuosity with the rare gift of choosing to work on problems that are both fundamental and complex,” said CSAIL Director Daniela Rus. “We are all so happy to hear about this well-deserved recognition for our colleague.”

Daskalakis received his undergraduate degree from the National Technical University of Athens and his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer sciences from the University of California at Berkeley. He has previously received such honors as the 2008 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award, the 2010 Sloan Fellowship in Computer Science, the Simo Simons Investigator Award, and the Kalai Game Theory and Computer Science Prize from the Game Theory Society.