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Global Young Scientists Summit

Leslie Valiant

Meet Professor Leslie Valiant, Turing Award winner and Harvard professor, whose work spans complexity theory, machine learning, and AI.

Last updated 3 August 2026
Portrait of Leslie Valiant, 2010 Turing Award winner, wearing glasses and a blue striped shirt.

Professor Leslie Valiant was educated at King's College, Cambridge and Imperial College, London, and received his PhD in computer science at Warwick University in 1974. He is currently T. Jefferson Coolidge Professor of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1982. Prior to this, he taught at Carnegie Mellon University, Leeds University and the University of Edinburgh.

His work has ranged over several areas of theoretical computer science, particularly complexity theory, learning and parallel computation. He also has interests in computational neuroscience, evolution and artificial intelligence and is the author of two books, Circuits of the Mind and Probably Approximately Correct. Prof Valiant received the Nevanlinna Prize in 1986, the Knuth Award in 1997, the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science EATCS Award in 2008 and the Turing Award in 2010. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.