Berners-Lee, Kirtley, Micali and Tsitsiklis elected to NAE memberships

February 12, 2007

Three MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department faculty members were elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and one Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab senior research sciencist was elected a foreign associate member of the NAE.

Professor of electrical engineering and member of the Laboratory for Electromagnetism and Electronic Systems (LEES), James L. Kirtley, Jr., professor of computer science and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), Silvio Micali and professor of electrical engineering and member of the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) and the Operations Research Center, John N. Tsitsiklis are among the 64 distinguished engineers elected by the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for membership.

In addition, Tim Berners-Lee was elected as one of nine foreign associates. Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium, senior researcher at CSAIL, where he leads the Decentralized Information Group (DIG), and professor of computer science at Southampton ECS.

As stated in the NAE website announcement, dated February 9, 2007, "Election to the National Academy of Engineering is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer. Academy membership honors those who have made outstanding contributions to 'engineering research, practice, or education, including, where appropriate, significant contributions to the engineering literature,' and to the 'pioneering of new and developing fields of technology, making major advancements in traditional fields of engineering, or developing/implementing innovative approaches to engineering education.'"

Professor Kirtley is cited by the NAE for "contributions to the theoretical analysis, design and construction of high-performance rotating electric machinery."

Professor Micali is cited by the NAE for "contributions to modern cryptography, through the development of zero-knowledge protocols and the theory of pseudo-randomness."

Professor Tsitsiklis is cited by the NAE for "contributions to the theory and application of optimization in dynamic and distributed systems."

Professor Berners-Lee is cited by the NAE for "development of the World Wide Web."

Congratulations to Professors Kirtley, Micali, Tsitsiklis and Berners-Lee.