A.M Turing Award Winner John Hopcroft Engaged as Special Counselor to the SJTU President
At the ceremony, President Zhang Jie issued the letter of appointment to Prof. John Hopcroft and helped him wear the university badge. On behalf of SJTU, President Zhang expressed welcome and congratulations. Zhang said Prof. John Hopcroft is a distinguished scientist and a prominent educator as well. When Prof. John Hopcroft learned about SJTU striving for becoming a world-class university, he immediately expressed his willingness to help SJTU to realize the dream. The involvement of Prof. John Hopcroft gives SJTU great confidence in its development, esp. in the area of Computer Science.
Prof. John Hopcroft considered it a great honor for him to become the special counselor to President Zhang Jie. He will contribute to the improvement of education quality of SJTU, help SJTU students become the world's top PhD students, and make great efforts to assist President Zhang to achieve the dream of and strategy for world-class university.
After the appointment ceremony, Prof. John Hopcroft gave a talk "Drivers of quality in US universities". He holds the view that there are three major drivers of quality in US universities: quality of research, reputation of faculty, and quality of PhD students. He introduced Cornell strategies for faculty hires and seeking top talent and mentioned that Cornell is willing to build relationships with universities in countries where there is large student population, strong educational system and importance attached to the history of students going abroad. In terms of suggested strategy for SJTU, he put forward advice in the area of strengthening undergraduate program, admission of Ph.D. students, and faculty promotion and hiring.
John Hopcroft is IBM Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in Computer Science, the winner of A.M. Turing Award, the world highest award in Computer Science, and member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He received B.S. in electrical engineering from Seattle University (1961), M.S. (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) in electrical engineering from Stanford University. His research interests are mainly computer science theories.
John Hopcroft worked successively as Professor at College of Engineering, Cornell University, Bell Lab consultant and the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering, Cornell University. In 1986, he won the A.M. Turing Award because of his important and fundamental contribution in the area of data structure and Algorithm design and analysis. In 1992, he was appointed by President Bush to the National Science Board (NSB), which oversees the National Science Foundation (NSF), and served through May 1998. He won the IEEE Harry H. Goode Memorial Award in 2005 and won the CRA Distinguished Service Award in 2007.