What is Gödel Prize: Prize Money and How Winners Are Chosen

Bengali-born theoretical computer scientist Eshan Chattopadhyay has won the coveted 2025 Gödel Prize for his innovative work that has puzzled scientists for almost thirty years.

Chattopadhyay, who is an associate professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, told PTI that he is dedicated to advancing curiosity-driven research and democratizing access to basic science. His award-winning work reveals the fundamentals of computation by examining the relationships between pseudorandomness and quantum computing.

What is Gödel Prize?

The Gödel Prize is awarded annually to the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computational Theory (ACM SIGACT) and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) for exceptional papers in the field of theoretical computer science. 

The award bears Kurt Gödel's name in honor of his significant contributions to mathematical logic and his interest in the now-famous "P versus NP" problem, which was revealed in a letter he wrote to John von Neumann just before Neumann's death.

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Who Awards Gödel Prize?

The Gödel Prize has been given out since 1993. The Award is given out alternately at STOC (odd years) and ICALP (even years). 

• International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (ICALP): One of the major conferences in theoretical computer science in Europe.

• ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC): One of the major conferences in theoretical computer science in North America.

Gödel Prize Selection Committee

The prize is awarded only to those people who have published their papers in a refereed publication in the last 14 (formerly 7) years. There is a $5,000 US incentive included in the award.

A committee consisting of six members chooses the prize recipient. Three members are chosen for staggered three-year terms by the SIGACT Chair and the EATCS President. SIGACT and EATCS representatives take turns chairing the committee.

Multiple papers or a group of papers can share the prize, and the Award Committee has the authority to announce no winner at all.

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