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Research Trevisan Prize

Thomas Rothvoss and Yang Liu Receive the 2025 Trevisan Prize

, by Weiwei Chen
The first winners of an award honoring groundbreaking work in computing theory, established in memory of Luca Trevisan, are announced

The Trevisan Prize, an international award dedicated to groundbreaking work in the Theory of Computing, was established in 2025 by Bocconi University and the Italian Academy of Sciences to commemorate and celebrate the work of Luca Trevisan, who passed away prematurely in June 2024. Two prizes are awarded biennially – one for an early-career and one for a mid-career researcher – for exceptional contributions to theoretical computer science.

In the 2025 edition, the mid-career award goes to Thomas Rothvoss, a Professor of the Department of Mathematics and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. The early-career award goes to Yang Liu, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA.

Prof Rothvoss is renowned for his breakthrough contributions to the study of optimization problems leading to novel approximation algorithms for bin-packing and Steiner tree problems, lower bounds on the extension complexity of the matching polytope, and major progress on the complexity of integer programming.

Prof Liu is commended for his exceptional contributions to algorithms and complexity including the development of almost linear time algorithms for the maximum flow problem and substantially improved bounds for the density Hales Jewett theorem and the corners problems in extremal combinatorics.

The inaugural call, announced in June 2025, received an enthusiastic response from the international community. A committee composed of Johan Håstad, Pravesh Kothari, Laura Sanità, and Madhu Sudan (chair) selected the awardees from an outstanding set of nominations, reflecting the vibrancy and diversity of the field that Luca Trevisan deeply cherished.

The award ceremony and lectures will take place on 26 January 2026 at Bocconi University.

  • Thomas Rothvoss: one scientific lecture and one lecture for a general audience
  • Yang Liu: one scientific lecture

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