Global group recognises CDU’s pioneering academic
A world-renowned mathematician has been elected as one of the first 10 Fellows conferred by an international association of computer scientists.
Charles Darwin University Professorial Fellow Professor Michael Fellows was conferred the unprecedented fellowship for his role in founding the field of parameterized complexity theory, which has become a major subfield of research in theoretical computer science.
The fellowship also recognises Professor Fellows for being a leader in computer science education.
He said it was gratifying to receive the honour, which has been preceded by 25 years of high-impact research in the area.
“Computer science is an incredibly creative field, and I am honoured to be part of a fraternity of leading industry and academic experts,” Professor Fellows said.
Professor Fellows joins researchers from universities in France, Germany and the USA, and a researcher with Microsoft, as a European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) Fellow.
The Fellowships are the highest honour in computer science and recognise outstanding track records of intellectual and organisational leadership.
Known as the “Maths Gypsies”, Professor Fellows and his wife, CDU Professorial Research Fellow Fran Rosamond, bring a unique brand of maths education to the Northern Territory, providing computer science workshops to teachers, parents and students, on the mathematics behind the machines.
In 2014, Professor Fellows was awarded the highest possible honour in maths education world-wide, the ETH International Medal of Honour, for his work in mathematics education and outreach.
He also has received a Festschrift [book of academic papers] from academic publisher, Springer, which is the highest honour given to a researcher on his / her 60th birthday.
His research interests include computational complexity theory, parameterized multivariate complexity theory, combinatorial algorithms and algorithmic methods and applications of combinatorial algorithms in computational biology, medical- and bio-informatics, and computational social choice.
The EATCS is an international organisation founded in 1972. It encourages the exchange of ideas and results among theoretical computer scientists, and builds relationships between the theoretical and the practical communities in computer science.