Toniann Pitassi — a professor and recent Bell Canada Chair in Information Systems in the Department of Computer Science, with a joint appointment in the Department of Mathematics — has been elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. The election recognizes ongoing research excellence and is considered among the highest of scientific honours.

Pitassi’s primary research area is computational complexity, a central component in the design of computer algorithms. The key problem in this field is to determine how many resources, including time and memory, an algorithm will require in order to perform most efficiently. Pitassi seeks to understand both the size allocation of resources needed to solve important computational problems, and the relationships and tradeoffs between such resources.

The most famous problem in computational complexity is the driving force behind much of Pitassi’s research. Known as the P versus NP problem, it asks whether every problem whose solution can be quickly verified can also be solved quickly. A solution to this problem would have profound implications not only for algorithmic research, but for mathematics, cryptography, artificial intelligence, game theory, philosophy, economics and many other fields.

Pitassi is also the Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence. She is concerned with ensuring fairness in artificial intelligence, and with the question of how to address biased data sources.

In addition to her positions at U of T and the Vector Institute, Pitassi is the Jeffrey L. and Brenda Bleustein Professor of Engineering at Columbia University. She received her BS and MS from Pennsylvania State University in 1985, followed by a PhD from the University of Toronto in 1992.

Named as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery in 2018, Pitassi received the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science Research Award in 2021. She is currently a research lead at the Schwartz-Reisman Institute for Technology and Society, and holds a five-year appointment as visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study.