Finding the Beauty in Computer Science and Engineering

An interview with Moshe Vardi, recipient of the 2025 Computer Pioneer Award For Moshe Y. Vardi, University Professor and the George Distinguished Service Professor in Computational Engineering at Rice University, Houston, Texas, U.S., computer science has always been rooted in the exact musings of mathematical equations. From the age of ten, he knew that within that precision lay answers and a unique level of beauty. In fact, when Vardi’s fourth-grade teacher started a math club to teach linear algebra, he jumped at the chance to participate, and throughout his career, his mother would remind him of his immediate reaction to the math club. “When she asked me how the math club was, I said it was very beautiful,” he recalled. “And she said, ‘You mean interesting.’ But I was adamant; it was beautiful! There is an aesthetic in mathematics. Not everybody appreciates it, but math has a core beauty, and apparently even as a fourth grader, I saw it.” What started as a fascination with the b ... Read full article.