Phokion Kolaitis - Biography#

Phokion Kolaitis is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UC Santa Cruz and a Principal Research Staff Member of the Computer Science Principles and Methodologies Department (a.k.a. the Theory Group) at the IBM Almaden Research Center. He served as Chair of the Computer Science Department at UC Santa Cruz from July 1997 to June 2001, and then again from July 2014 to June 2015. From June 2004 to September 2008, he served as Senior Manager of the Computer Science Principles and Methodologies Department at the IBM Almaden Research Center (and while on leave of absence from UC Santa Cruz). Kolaitis is currently serving on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing. His research interests include principles of database systems, logic in computer science, and computational complexity.

Kolaitis is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), a Foreign Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, and the recipient of a 1993 Guggenheim Fellowship. He is also the recipient of two IBM Research Division Outstanding Innovation Awards, an IBM Research Division Outstanding Technical Achievement Award, a co-winner of both the 2008 and the 2014 ACM PODS Alberto O. Mendelzon Test-of-Time Award, and a co-winner of the 2013 International Conference on Database Theory Test-of-Time Award. In 2014, Kolaitis was awarded an Honorary Doctorate Degree (Doctor Honoris Causa) from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.