Samuel R. (Sam) Buss (born August 6, 1957) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

who has made major contributions to the fields of

mathematical logic Mathematical logic is the study of Logic#Formal logic, formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory (also known as computability theory). Research in mathematical logic com ...

, complexity theory and

proof complexity In logic and theoretical computer science, and specifically proof theory and computational complexity theory, proof complexity is the field aiming to understand and analyse the computational resources that are required to prove or refute statements. ...

. He is currently a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

, Department of Computer Science and Department of Mathematics.

Biography

Buss received his

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

in 1979 from the

Emory University Emory University is a private university, private research university in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. It was founded in 1836 as Emory College by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. Its main campu ...

, and his

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

and Ph.D. from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

, respectively in 1983 and 1985. He joined the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, mathematics department in 1986 as a Lecturer, and stayed there until 1988. Buss joined the faculty of

Computer Science
an
Mathematics
Departments in 1988 as an assistant professor, where he was promoted to Professor in 1993. In 2019, Buss gave the

Gödel Lecture The Gödel Lecture is an honor in mathematical logic given by the Association for Symbolic Logic, associated with an annual lecture at the association's general meeting. The award is named after Kurt Gödel and has been given annually since 1990. ...

titled ''Totality, provability and feasibility.''

Research

Buss is considered one of the forefathers of bounded arithmetic and

. During his PhD, Buss worked in bounded arithmetic. He received his PhD in 1985. He introduced bounded arithmetic in his thesis and gave a nice proof theoretic characterization of polynomial time computation. His thesis is one of the main references in the area of bounded arithmetic. He is also author/editor of several books in mathematical logic and computer science. Buss proved in 1983 that the Boolean Formula Evaluation problem is in ALogTime, a major result in complexity theory. His main research areas are

, complexity theory and

. Other areas which he has contributed to include bounded arithmetic, bounded reverse mathematics, and lower bounds in propositional

proof system In mathematical logic, a proof calculus or a proof system is built to prove statements. Overview A proof system includes the components: * Formal language: The set ''L'' of formulas admitted by the system, for example, propositional logic or fir ...

References

External links

Home page of Samuel R. Buss

Bounded arithmetic

{{DEFAULTSORT:Buss, Sam Living people American computer scientists Emory University alumni Princeton University alumni University of California, San Diego faculty 1957 births