Professor Lance Fortnow, chair of School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology, signed a five-year extension to continue as school chair.

“Leading this school is one of the most gratifying experiences in my career,” Fortnow said. “Over the past five years, SCS has empowered computing, developed remarkable computer scientists, and produced truly impactful research. I am excited to continue this growth and discovery!”

Appointed in 2012, Fortnow was selected after a national search conducted by the Georgia Tech College of Computing. Since then, Fortnow has seen the school through significant growth including the creation of a new research center and research institute. Furthermore, Fortnow has seen four SCS faculty members appointed to director or co-director roles within the college. He also recruited several notable faculty members during his tenure, bolstering the school’s faculty with experts in such area as computer architecture, cybersecurity, and network systems, to name a few.

“Lance has proven himself as an effective chair and leader for the School of Computer Science,” Georgia Tech’s College of Computing Dean Zvi Galil said. “The school maintains a strong level of research productivity and funding in the foundational areas of computing while launching substantial efforts in areas like computer architecture, cybersecurity, and data science. It has been a pleasure working with Lance during his first five years, and I look forward to working with him during his second term.”

Among his many activities, Fortnow was the founding editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions on Computation Theory, served as chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory, and held a position on the Computing Research Association Board of Directors. Since 2002, Fortnow has co-authored the Computational Complexity blog, the first major theoretical computer science blog. Also, Fortnow has written a popular science book “The Golden Ticket: P, NP and the Search for the Impossible.”

Fortnow received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989. Before joining Georgia Tech, Fortnow was a professor at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, a senior research scientist at the NEC Research Institute, and a one-year visiting professor at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and the University of Amsterdam.

Fortnow begins his second term as chair in July 2017.