László Lovász awarded an honorary doctorate from Yale University

Since 1702, Yale University has had a tradition of awarding honorary doctorates for outstanding achievement or exemplary contributions to the public good.

At this year’s graduation ceremony, nine people were honoured, including László Lovász, mathematician, full member and former president of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

In the picture are the award winners, from left, front row: Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, Judith Rodin, Peter Salovey, Mahzarin Banaji and Hortense Spillers; from left, second row: László Lovász, Kehinde Wiley, Mario Capecchi and Stephen Breyer. Photo: Michael Marsland

Lovász was praised as a brilliant mathematician and theoretical computer scientist whose pioneering contributions in combinatorics, a branch of pure mathematics, have led to real-world applications in computer science, engineering, statistics and the natural sciences that serve and advance humankind. The Yale University award reminds us that Lovász has “received almost every award a mathematician can earn, including the Abel Prize, the highest honour in mathematics: We are honoured that you have agreed to receive another one, from the university where you have taught and conducted research for over half a decade, and which itself is honoured to present you with the degree of Doctor of Engineering and Technology.”

Yale University also awarded an honorary doctorate in 2022 to Katalin Karikó, a biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize last year.