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Richard M. Karp
Computer scientist

Richard M. Karp

Famoose for

Algorithms and the theory of computational complexity.

Held–Karp algorithm · Reducibility among combinatorial problems

Born
3 January 1935
Birthplace
Boston

More people

Ada LovelaceRecognising what a programmable machine could do beyond arithmetic.Alan TuringHelping break Enigma and laying foundations for computer science.Grace HopperHelping make computer programming readable in English-like language.

Richard M. Karp

American computer scientist whose research helped establish how difficult computational problems relate to one another. Won the 1985 Turing Award.

Early life

Harvard training

Grew up in Boston and studied at Harvard, completing a doctorate in applied mathematics in 1959.

Career

  1. 1959

    IBM

    Began research at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center.

  2. 1968

    Berkeley

    Became a professor of computer science, mathematics and operations research.

  3. 2012

    Simons Institute

    Became founding director of the theory-of-computing institute.

Contributions

Held–Karp algorithm

Developed an exact algorithm for the travelling-salesperson problem with Michael Held.

Reducibility among combinatorial problems

Showed that many important problems share NP-completeness.

Beyond work

Teaching

Received Berkeley's Distinguished Teaching Award in 1986. In an interview, he compared preparing a lecture with preparing a theatrical performance, emphasizing the work needed to communicate ideas clearly.

Sources & photo creditBiography and career ↗Biographical references ↗Teaching — biographical source ↗Distinctive contribution — source ↗

Original photograph. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.

Photo: Rama. CC BY-SA 2.0 fr · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.