Milner Award
{{Short description|European computer science award}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox award
| name = Royal Society Milner Award and Lecture
| awarded_for = "outstanding achievement in computer science by a European researcher"
| current_awards =
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| presenter = The Royal Society
| reward = £5,000
| year = {{Start date|2012}}
| website = [https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/milner-award/ Milner Award and Lecture]
}}
The Royal Society Milner Award, formally the Royal Society Milner Award and Lecture, is awarded annually by the Royal Society, a London-based learned society, for "outstanding achievement in computer science by a European researcher". The award is supported by Microsoft Research and is named in honour of Robin Milner, a prolific pioneer in computer science{{cite web |title=Royal Society Milner Award and Lecture Now Accepting Nominations |url=https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/royal-society-milner-award-and-lecture-now-accepting-nominations/ |website=HPCwire |access-date=11 May 2021 |date=15 January 2020 |archive-date=11 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511211914/https://www.hpcwire.com/off-the-wire/royal-society-milner-award-and-lecture-now-accepting-nominations/ |url-status=live }} who, among other contributions, designed LCF and the programming language ML.{{cite web|title=Obituaries: Robin Milner, 1934–2010|url=https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/misc/obituaries/milner/|access-date=10 May 2021|publisher=Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Cambridge|archive-date=23 March 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210323181816/https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/misc/obituaries/milner/|url-status=live}}
Recipients should be active researchers in computer science who are either European or have resided in Europe for at least 12 months prior to their nomination. Winners receive a bronze medal and a personal prize of £5,000 and are invited to deliver a public lecture on their research at the Society. The Council of the Royal Society chooses recipients on the recommendation of the Milner Award Committee. The committee is made up of Fellows of the Royal Society, Members of the Académie des sciences (France), and Members of Leopoldina (Germany).
Preceding the Milner Award was the Royal Society and Académie des sciences Microsoft Award, which rewarded scientists in Europe for advancements in science using computational methods. It lasted from 2006 to 2009 until it was replaced by the current award.{{cite web|title=Past medals, awards and prize lectures|url=https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/past-awards/|access-date=11 May 2021|publisher=The Royal Society|archive-date=11 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511154911/https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/past-awards/|url-status=live}} The ACM SIGPLAN Robin Milner Young Researcher Award is a similar award rewarded for "outstanding contributions by young investigators in the area of programming languages".{{Cite web|date=13 September 2017|title=Derek Dreyer receives Robin Milner Young Researcher Award|url=https://www.mpi-sws.org/category/prize/career-award/#:~:text=MPI-SWS%20faculty%20member%20Derek%20Dreyer%20has%20received%20the%202017%20Robin%20Milner%20Young%20Researcher%20Award,%20which%20is%20given%20by%20ACM%20SIGPLAN%20to%20recognize%20outstanding%20contributions%20by%20young%20investigators%20in%20the%20area%20of%20programming%20languages|access-date=11 May 2021|publisher=Max Planck Institute|archive-date=11 May 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511220620/https://www.mpi-sws.org/category/prize/career-award/#:~:text=MPI-SWS%20faculty%20member%20Derek%20Dreyer%20has%20received%20the%202017%20Robin%20Milner%20Young%20Researcher%20Award,%20which%20is%20given%20by%20ACM%20SIGPLAN%20to%20recognize%20outstanding%20contributions%20by%20young%20investigators%20in%20the%20area%20of%20programming%20languages|url-status=live}}
Recipients
The inaugural winner Gordon Plotkin received his prize in 2012{{cite web|title=Gordon Plotkin|url=https://royalsociety.org/people/gordon-plotkin-12103/|access-date=29 April 2021|publisher=The Royal Society|archive-date=29 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429082841/https://royalsociety.org/people/gordon-plotkin-12103/|url-status=live}} but delivered his public lecture in 2013,{{cite web|title=From logic to computer science: a linguistic journey|url=https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2013/logic-computer-science/|access-date=27 April 2021|publisher=The Royal Society|archive-date=27 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427144507/https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2013/logic-computer-science/|url-status=live}} the same year as Serge Abiteboul. In 2018, Marta Kwiatkowska became the first female recipient of the award.{{cite web |title=Marta Kwiatkowska – Biography |url=http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/marta.kwiatkowska/bio.html |publisher=Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford |access-date=12 May 2021 |archive-date=23 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210423175158/http://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/marta.kwiatkowska/bio.html |url-status=live }} Although the 2019 recipient Eugene Myers is American, he moved to Dresden, Germany, in 2012 to become a director of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics,{{cite web|date=4 June 2012|title=Eugene Myers will lead new Systems Biology Center|url=https://www.mpg.de/5831971/myers_systems_biology_center|access-date=29 April 2021|publisher=Max-Planck-Gesellschaft|archive-date=29 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210429082842/https://www.mpg.de/5831971/myers_systems_biology_center|url-status=live}} thus meeting the criteria for a researcher who is European or has lived in Europe for at least 12 months. Due to infection control measures taken because of the COVID-19 pandemic,{{cite web|title=The Royal Society, London|url=https://royalsociety.org/about-us/contact-us/carlton-house-terrace-london/|access-date=30 April 2021|publisher=The Royal Society|archive-date=30 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430090324/https://royalsociety.org/about-us/contact-us/carlton-house-terrace-london/|url-status=live}} the 2020 lecture was held as a Zoom webinar.{{cite web|title=Automatic understanding of the visual world|url=https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2020/11/Milner-Lecture/|access-date=27 April 2021|publisher=The Royal Society|archive-date=27 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427144501/https://royalsociety.org/science-events-and-lectures/2020/11/Milner-Lecture/|url-status=live}}
| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders"
|+ Milner Award winners ! scope="col" | Year ! scope="col" class="unsortable"| Image ! scope="col" | Recipient ! scope="col" | Nationality ! scope="col" class="unsortable"| Rationale ! scope="col" class="unsortable"| {{Abbr|Ref|Reference}} |
| 2012
! scope="row" | {{sortname|Gordon|Plotkin}} | British | "for his fundamental research into programming semantics with lasting impact on both the principles and design of programming languages" |
| 2013
|File:Serge Abiteboul - mai 2016.jpg ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Serge|Abiteboul}} | French | "for his world leading database research with significant scientific and industrial impact" |
| 2014
|{{center|{{en dash}}}} ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Bernhard|Schölkopf}} | German | "for being a pioneer in machine learning whose work defined the field of 'kernel machines' which are widely used in all areas of science and industry" |
| 2015
! scope="row" | {{sortname|Thomas|Henzinger}} | Austrian | "for his fundamental advances in the theory and practice of formal verification and synthesis of reactive, real-time, and hybrid computer systems" |
| 2016
! scope="row" | {{sortname|Xavier|Leroy}} | French | "for his exceptional achievements in computer programming which includes the design and implementation of the OCaml programming language" |
| 2017
|{{center|{{en dash}}}} ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Andrew|Zisserman}} | British | "for his work on computational theory and commercial systems for geometrical images and as a pioneer in machine learning for vision" |
| 2018
! scope="row" | {{sortname|Marta|Kwiatkowska}} | Polish | "for her contribution to the theoretical and practical development of stochastic and quantitative model checking" |
| 2019
|File:Gene Myers ISMB 2014.jpg ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Eugene|Myers}} | American | "for his development of computational techniques that have brought genome sequencing into everyday use, underpinned key biological sequencing tools, and made large scale analysis of biological images practical" |
| 2020
|{{center|{{en dash}}}} ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Cordelia|Schmid}} | French | "for her work in computer vision and her fundamental contributions to the representation of images and videos for visual recognition" |
| 2021
|File:Professor Zoubin Ghahramani FRS.jpg ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Zoubin|Ghahramani}} | British / Iranian | "for his fundamental contributions to probabilistic machine learning" |
| 2022
|{{center|{{en dash}}}} ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Yvonne|Rogers}} | British | "for contributions to Human-Computer Interaction and the design of human-centred technology" |
| 2023
! scope="row" | {{sortname|Stéphane|Mallat}} | French | "for his key advances in the fundamental principles of wavelets, including theory for audio, image and video processing, his entrepreneurship, and for contributing significantly to advancing the understanding of deep neural networks" | style="text-align: center;" | {{cite web|date=24 August 2022|title=The Royal Society announces this year's medal and award winners|url=https://royalsociety.org/news/2022/08/medals-and-awards-2022|access-date=2022-08-26|publisher=Royal Society}} |
| 2024
|File:Professor Artur Ekert FRS (cropped).jpg ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Artur|Ekert}} | British / Polish | "for his pioneering contributions to quantum communication and computation, which transformed the field of quantum information science from a niche academic activity into a vibrant interdisciplinary field of industrial relevance" | style="text-align: center;" | {{cite web|date=30 August 2023|title=The Royal Society announces this year's medal and award winners|url=https://royalsociety.org/news/2023/08/medals-and-awards-2023/|access-date=2023-09-01|publisher=Royal Society}} |
| 2024
|File:Портрет Ірини Гуревич(PortraitIrynaGurevych).jpg ! scope="row" | {{sortname|Iryna|Gurevych}} | Ukrainian / German | "for her major contributions to natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence that combine deep understanding of human language and cognitive faculty with the latest paradigms in machine learning" | style="text-align: center;" | {{cite web|date=28 August 2024|title=Nobel Prize-winning scientist wins Royal Society’s most prestigious scientific award|url=https://royalsociety.org/news/2024/08/medals-and-awards-recipients-2024/|access-date=2023-09-19|publisher=Royal Society}} |
See also
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite web|url=https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/awards/milner-award/|title=Milner Award and Lecture|publisher=The Royal Society}}
{{Milner Award laureates}}
{{RoySoc}}
{{featured list}}