Vladimir Vapnik, professor of
computer science and senior research scientist at SEAS’s Center for Computational Learning Systems, has been awarded the Kanellakis Award by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for developing one of the most frequently used algorithms in machine learning, Support Vector Machines (SVM). The applications of this algorithm range from medical diagnosis to handwriting recognition to text mining. He shares the award with Corinna Cortes, a co-developer of SVM and head of Google Research NY.
“I am pleased that our work on the SVM method has received such high recognition,” said Vapnik. “I would like to recognize that this work would have be impossible without the existence of works made earlier jointly with Alexey Chervonenkis and Isabelle Guyon.”
The ACM’s Kanellakis Award honors “specific theoretical accomplishments that have had a significant and demonstrable effect on the practice of computing.” The citation is “For the development of Support Vector Machines, a highly effective algorithm for classification and related machine learning problems.” The citation notes that the algorithm and its variants have been used successfully in practical applications such as handwriting recognition, speech synthesis, medical diagnosis, protein structure prediction, face detection, weather forecasting, intrusion detection, and text mining.
“This is a very well-deserved award for the extremely high-impact work that Professor Vapnik has done,” said David Waltz, director of the Center for Computational Learning Systems, who brought Vapnik to Columbia. “He continues to actively push the frontiers of machine learning research.”
Vapnik also developed a general theory for minimizing the expected risk of losses using empirical data. This theory and SVM have been used to solve many pattern recognition and regression estimation problems and have been applied to the problems of dependency estimation, forecasting, and constructing intelligent machines.
A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Vapnik joined the Columbia faculty in 2003. He received his master’s degree in mathematics from Uzbek State University, Samarkand, USSR and joined the Institute of Control Sciences, Moscow, where he worked from 1961 to 1990, becoming head of the Computer Science Research Department. He then joined AT&T Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J., where he continues as a consultant. He is also a Fellow of NEC Laboratories in Princeton.
The award will be presented at the ACM Awards Banquet on June 27 in San Diego, Calif.
