University Turing expert wins international award

University of Canterbury Turing expert wins international award

March 15, 2015

The University of Canterbury’s Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Jack Copeland, has just been named 2016 winner of the Covey Award by the International Association for Computing and Philosophy (IACAP).

Professor Copeland is internationally recognised for his expertise in the philosophy and history of computing and mathematical and philosophical logic. He is particularly renowned as a leading authority on the work of code-breaker Alan Turing, whose life was dramatised recently in the film The Imitation Game.

On the 50th anniversary of Turing’s death, Professor Copeland delivered the first annual Turing Memorial Lecture at Bletchley Park National Museum at Milton Keynes north of London and lectured on Turing’s life and work at the Royal Institution of London. In Turing's centenary year, 2012, he organised Alan Turing's 100th Birthday Party, a two-day international academic event at King's College Cambridge, and also the Turing Education Day at Bletchley Park.

Professor Copeland has appeared in a number of movies about Turing, including the BBC's Code-Breakers, which was listed as one of the year's three best historical documentaries at the 2013 Media Impact Awards in New York City and is based on Copeland's book Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers.

The Covey Award recognises senior scholars with a substantial record of innovative research in the field of computing and philosophy. Dr Mariarosaria Taddeo, of the Oxford Internet Institute, who is President of IACAP (http://www.iacap.org), says the competition was tough, with nominations open to all scholars working in the field of philosophy and computing, but that the board voted unanimously in Professor Copeland’s favour.

The prize will be awarded next year in a ceremony at the IACAP conference to be held at the University of Ferrara in Italy. By tradition Professor Copeland will deliver a keynote conference speech after the award ceremony.

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