Bio

Oscar H. Ibarra is Professor Emeritus and Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. He is a past recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the IEEE Computer Society's Harry H. Goode Memorial Award, the European Academy of Science Blaise Pascal Medal in Computer Science, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, the Nokia Visiting Fellowship in Finland, and the UK Royal Academy of Engineering Distinguished Visiting Fellowship. He is a foreign member of Academia Europaea. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Foundations of Computer Science. In July 2015, during the 40th anniversary of the journal, Theoretical Computer Science, Ibarra was named the most prolific author in its 40-year history. 

Research

Ibarra's research interests include automata theory, formal languages, design and analysis of algorithms, and computational complexity.

Honors and Awards

• Fellow, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 1984 - 1985
• Fellow, Minnesota Supercomputer Institute, September 1987 -
• Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), January 1992 -
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), September 1993 -
• Outstanding UCSB Computer Science Professor, 1993
• Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), March 1995 -
• First ITL Infosys Distinguished Speaker Award, 1996
• 2001 IEEE Computer Society's Harry H. Goode Memorial Award, 2001
• "Award of Distinction" for outstanding contributions to computer science, presented by the Computing Society of the Philippines during the International Symposium on Parallel Architectures, Algorithms, and Networks (ISPAN'02), Manila, May 2002
• Philippine-American Academy of Science and Engineering Founder's Lectureship Award in Engineering, presented at the academy's 21st annual meeting and symposium, Solomons Island, Maryland, August 2002
• Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Invitation Fellowship for Research, Fall 2002
• Computer Science: From Theory to Practice, a workshop on the occasion of Oscar H. Ibarra's 60th birthday, August 2002, Singapore
• University of the Philippines Alumni Association (UPAA) distinguished alumnus award: the 2003 Outstanding Professional in the field of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, June 2003
• First P Prize in Membrane Computing, announced during the 2003 Workshop on Membrane Computing, Tarragona, Spain, July 2003
• Elected member of the European Academy of Sciences (EAS), 2003
• Included in Thomson ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) database of 230 Highly Cited Researchers in Computer Science, 2003
• Awarded a Nokia Visiting Fellowship to visit the University of Turku, 2007
• Awarded the 2007 Blaise Pascal Medal in Computer Science from the European Academy of Sciences
• Elected Foreign Member of Academia Europaea (Informatics Section), 2008
• Awarded a Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, 2008
• Named the most prolific author in the 40-year history of the journal Theoretical Computer Science during the 40th anniversary of the journal, 2015
• Member of European Academy of Science (EAS)
• Foreign Member of Academia Europaea

Publications