Vincent Conitzer, who earned his master's (2003) and PhD (2006) in computer science at Carnegie Mellon, will receive the 2011 Computers and Thought Award at the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Barcelona this July. The award is presented every two years to the world's leading AI researchers under the age of 35.

Conitzer, an assistant professor of computer science at Duke University, is receiving the award in recognition of his seminal work at the boundary of microeconomic theory and artificial intelligence, in particular for groundbreaking work on computational aspects of game theory, social choice, and mechanism design. Also receiving the IJCAI Computers and Thought Award this year is Malte Helmert, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Freiburg who is being recognized for his work in automated planning and combinatorial search.

Conitzer is the first "third-generation" winner of one of the two main IJCAI awards, in that his PhD adviser at Carnegie Mellon was Prof. Tuomas Sandholm, who received the Computers and Thought Award in 2003; in turn, Sandholm's PhD adviser at the University of Massachusetts Amherst was Victor Lesser, who received the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence in 2009. All three were recognized for their work with multi-agent systems.

Previous Carnegie Mellon faculty members to win IJCAI awards include Tom Mitchell and Carlos Guestrin, both recipients of the Computers and Thought Award, and Allen Newell and Herbert Simon, who each received the Research Excellence Award.