Dexter Kozen

Dexter Campbell Kozen is an American theoretical computer scientist. He is Professor Emeritus and Joseph Newton Pew, Jr. Professor in Engineering at Cornell University.

Career

Kozen received his BA in mathematics from Dartmouth College in 1974 and his PhD in computer science in 1977 from Cornell University, where he was advised by Juris Hartmanis on the thesis, Complexity of Finitely Presented Algebras.
He is known for his work at the intersection of logic and complexity. He is one of the fathers of dynamic logic and developed the version of the modal μ-calculus most used today. His work on Kleene algebra with tests was recognized with an Alonzo Church Award in 2022. Moreover, he has written several textbooks on the theory of computation, automata theory, dynamic logic, and algorithms.
Kozen was a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in the band "Harmful if Swallowed". He also holds the position of faculty advisor for Cornell's rugby football club.

John G. Kemeny Prize in Computing, Dartmouth College
Outstanding Innovation Award, IBM Corporation
Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
Stephen and Margery Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Arts and Sciences, Cornell
ACM Fellow, for contributions to theoretical computer science
Fellow, AAAS
2001 LICS Test-of-Time Award for the paper "A completeness theorem for Kleene algebras and the algebra of regular events"
Faculty of the Year, ACSU
Radboud Excellence professorship at the Radboud University Nijmegen
Fellow, EATCS
EATCS Distinguished Achievements Award
McDowell Award, for groundbreaking contributions to topics ranging from computational complexity to the analysis of algebraic computations to logics of programs and verification
Weiss Presidential Fellow
POPL Distinguished Paper Award for the paper "Guarded Kleene algebra with tests: verification of uninterpreted programs in nearly linear time"
Alonzo Church Award, for his fundamental work on developing the theory and applications of Kleene Algebra with Tests, an equational system for reasoning about iterative programs, published in the paper "Kleene algebra with tests"
OOPSLA Distinguished Paper Award for the paper "Formal abstractions for packet scheduling"