Lotfi A. Zadeh joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of California , Berkeley , in 1959, and served as its chairman from 1963 to 1968. Earlier, he was a member of the electrical engineering faculty at Columbia University . In 1956, he was a visiting member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton , New Jersey . In addition, he held a number of other visiting appointments, among them a visiting professorship in Electrical Engineering at MIT in 1962 and 1968; a visiting scientist appointment at IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, CA, in 1968, 1973, and 1977; and visiting scholar appointments at the AI Center, SRI International, in 1981, and at the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University, in 1987-1988. Currently he is a Professor in the Graduate School , and is serving as the Director of BISC (Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing).
Until 1965, Dr. Zadeh's work had been centered on system theory and decision analysis. Since then, his research interests have shifted to the theory of fuzzy sets and its applications to artificial intelligence, linguistics, logic, decision analysis, control theory, expert systems and neural networks. Currently, his research is focused on fuzzy logic, soft computing, computing with words, and the newly developed computational theory of perceptions and precisiated natural language.
An alumnus of the University of Teheran , MIT, and Columbia University , Dr. Zadeh is a fellow of the IEEE, AAAS, ACM and AAAI, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He held NSF Senior Postdoctoral Fellowships in 1956-57 and 1962-63, and was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow in 1968. Dr. Zadeh was the recipient of the IEEE Education Medal in 1973 and a recipient of the IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984. In 1989, Dr. Zadeh was awarded the Honda Prize by the Honda Foundation, and in 1991 received the Berkeley Citation, University of California .
In 1992, Dr. Zadeh was awarded the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal "For seminal contribu tions to information science and systems, including the conceptualization of fuzzy sets." He became a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (Computer Sciences and Cybernetics Section) in 1992 and received the Certificate of Commendation for AI Special Contributions Award from the International Foundation for Artificial Intelligence. Also in 1992, he was awarded the Kampe de Feriet Prize and became an Honorary Member of the Austrian Society of Cybernetic Studies.
In 1993, Dr. Zadeh received the Rufus Oldenburger Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers "For seminal contributions in system theory, decision analysis, and theory of fuzzy sets and its applications to AI, linguistics, logic, expert systems and neural networks." He was also awarded the Grigore Moisil Prize for Fundamental Researches, and the Premier Best Paper Award by the Second International Conference on Fuzzy Theory and Technology. In 1995, Dr. Zadeh was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor "For pioneering development of fuzzy logic and its many diverse applications." In 1996, Dr. Zadeh was awarded the Okawa Prize "For outstanding contribution to information science through the development of fuzzy logic and its applications."
In 1997, Dr. Zadeh was awarded the B. Bolzano Medal by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic "For outstanding achievements in fuzzy mathematics." He also received the J.P. Wohl Career Achievement Award of the IEEE Systems, Science and Cybernetics Society. He served as a Lee Kuan Yew Distinguished Visitor, lecturing at the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore , and as the Gulbenkian Foundation Visiting Professor at the New University of Lisbon in Portugal . In 1998, Dr. Zadeh was awarded the Edward Feigenbaum Medal by the International Society for Intelligent Systems, and the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award by the American Council on Automatic Control. In addition, he received the Information Science Award from the Association for Intelligent Machinery and the SOFT Scientific Contribution Memorial Award from the Society for Fuzzy Theory in Japan . In 1999, he was elected to membership in Berkeley Fellows and received the Certificate of Merit from IFSA (International Fuzzy Systems Association). In 2000, he received the IEEE Millennium Medal; the IEEE Pioneer Award in Fuzzy Systems; the ASPIH 2000 Lifetime Distinguished Achievement Award; and the ACIDCA 2000 Award fot the paper, "From Computing with Numbers to Computing with Words -- From Manipulation of Measurements to Manipulation of Perceptions." In 2001, he received the ACM 2000 Allen Newell Award for seminal contributions to AI through his development of fuzzy logic.
Dr. Zadeh holds honorary doctorates from Paul- Sabatier University, Toulouse, France; State University of New York, Binghamton, NY; University of Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany; University of Oviedo, Oviedo, Spain; University of Granada, Granada, Spain; Lakehead University, Canada; University of Louisville, KY; Baku State University, Azerbaijan; the Silesian Technical University, Gliwice , Poland; the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada; the University of Ostrava , Ostrava , the Czech Republic; the University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL; and the University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany; and the University of Paris(6), Paris, France. Dr. Zadeh has authored close to two hundred papers and serves on the editorial boards of over fifty journals. He is a member of the Advisory Board, Fuzzy Initiative, North Rhine- Westfalia , Germany; Advisory Board, Fuzzy Logic Research Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas; Advisory Committee, Center for Education and Research in Fuzzy Systems and Artificial Intelligence, Iasi , Romania; Senior Advisory Board, International Institute for General Systems Studies; the Board of Governors, International Neural Networks Society; and is the Honorary President of the Biomedical Fuzzy Systems Association of Japan and the Spanish Association for Fuzzy Logic and Technologies. In addition, he is a member of the International Steering Committee, Hebrew University School of Engineering; a member of the Advisory Board of the National Institute of Informatics, Tokyo ; a member of the Governing Board, Knowledge Systems Institute, Skokie , IL ; and an honorary member of the Academic Council of NAISO-IAAC.
LOTFI A. ZADEH is a Professor in the Graduate School , Computer Science Division, Department of EECS, University of California , Berkeley . In addition, he is serving as the Director of BISC (Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computing).
Lotfi Zadeh is an alumnus of the University of Teheran , MIT and Columbia University . He held visiting appointments at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ; MIT; IBM Research Laboratory, San Jose, CA; SRI International, Menlo Park, CA; and the Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. His earlier work was concerned in the main with systems analysis, decision analysis and information systems. His current research is focused on fuzzy logic, computing with words and soft computing, which is a coalition of fuzzy logic, neurocomputing , evolutionary computing, probabilistic computing and parts of machine learning. The guiding principle of soft computing is that, in general, better solutions can be obtained by employing the constituent methodologies of soft computing in combination rather than in stand-alone mode.
Lotfi Zadeh is a Fellow of the IEEE, AAAS, ACM, AAAI, and IFSA. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. He is a recipient of the IEEE Education Medal, the IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal, the IEEE Medal of Honor, the ASME Rufus Oldenburger Medal, the B. Bolzano Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Kampe de Feriet Medal, the AACC Richard E. Bellman Central Heritage Award, the Grigore Moisil Prize, the Honda Prize, the Okawa Prize, the AIM Information Science Award, the IEEE-SMC J. P. Wohl Career Acheivement Award, the SOFT Scietific Contribution Memorial Award of the Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory, the IEEE Millennium Medal, the ACM 2000 Allen Newell Award, and other awards and honorary doctorates. He has published extensively on a wide variety of subjects relating to the conception, design and analysis of information/intelligent systems, and is serving on the editorial boards of over fifty journals.
