Top computer scientists join Peking University

Peking: Peking University presented letters of appointment to Manuel Blum and his wife Lenore Blum via an online ceremony. The pair were appointed as Visiting Chair Professors of Peking University.

Manuel Blum is Bruce Nelson Chair Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He is a computer scientist and winner of the 1995 A.M. Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science. He made substantial contributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and program checking. Lenore Blum is Distinguished Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. She is known for her contributions to the theory of real number computation, for her invention of a cryptographically secure pseudorandom number generator, and for her efforts to increase the diversity of mathematics and computer science.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. and Mrs. Blum used the Internet to teach around 30 PKU students, whom they deemed as excellent as those learning at Carnegie Mellon University. The two professors were also pleased to exchange views with PKU students and see them make steady progress in online lectures.