School of Informatics

Alumnus awarded Lovelace Medal

[2016] Professor Andrew Blake has won the 2016 BCS Lovelace Medal, the top award in computing in the UK.

Awarded by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, the award is presented annually to individuals who, in the opinion of BCS, have made a significant contribution to the advancement of Information Systems.

Professor Blake received a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from the University of Edinburgh in 1983 and stayed on as a lecturer in Computer Science until 1987. He went on to become a Microsoft Distinguished Scientist and Laboratory Director of Microsoft Research Cambridge. Last year he became the first Director of the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science, of which we are a founding partner.

Outstanding contribution

Paul Fletcher, Group Chief Executive Officer BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, said:

“Professor Blake has made an outstanding contribution to the understanding and advancement of Computing as a discipline in a distinguished career spanning academia and industry. I am delighted that we are awarding him the Lovelace Medal in recognition of his wide range of achievements. The impact he has made to the IT industry, and his contribution to academic research makes him a richly deserving recipient of this prestigious award.”

Professor Blake responded:

“Being awarded the BCS Lovelace Medal is a great honour. In part it reflects the way computer vision has moved from being a futuristic experiment to a mainstream technology that really works. And in part I take the award as a great encouragement for the Alan Turing Institute as the UK develops its new national Institute for data science.”

The Lovelace Medal

The BCS Lovelace Medal was established in 1998 in honour of Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace and daughter of Lord Byron. She was born in 1815.

Previous winners include worldwide web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Linux creator Linus Torvalds, ARM designer Steve Furber, information retrieval pioneer Karen Spärck Jones, and Doug Engelbart who developed the computer mouse and the modern style of computer interface.

Useful links

Alan Turing Institute