![Scott Aaronson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (left) and Robert Wood of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (right) will each receive the National Science Foundation's 2012 Alan T. Waterman Award [images courtesy Scott Aaronson, MIT, and Eliza Grinnell, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, via NSF].](http://www.cccblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/waterman1_f1.jpeg "Scott Aaronson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (left) and Robert Wood of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (right) will each receive the National Science Foundation's 2012 Alan T. Waterman Award [images courtesy Scott Aaronson, MIT, and Eliza Grinnell, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, via NSF].")
For the first time in the 37-year history of the distinguished honor, the National Science Foundation (NSF) today named two individuals — both computer scientists — as joint recipients of the 2012 Alan T. Waterman Award. Scott Aaronson of MIT and Robert Wood of Harvard were honored with the award, recognizing “an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering” supported by NSF. Also for the first time, both Aaronson and Wood will receive $1 million grants over a five-year period to further their research, up from $500,000 awards in recent years.
![2012 Alan T. Waterman awardees named [image courtesy NSF].](http://www.cccblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/waterman_f.png "2012 Alan T. Waterman awardees named [image courtesy NSF].")
Aaronson was selected for his research on the limitations of quantum computers and computational complexity theory more generally. Wood received his Waterman for his efforts designing, fabricating, controlling, and analyzing biologically-inspired microrobots and soft robots — including the NSF-funded Expeditions in Computing on RoboBees.
See a video of Aaronson presenting his work at a recent TED conference after the jump…
» Read more: Two Computer Scientists Receive 2012 Alan Waterman Award
