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Rod Downey
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Rod Downey
Rodney Graham Downey (born 20 September 1957) is a New Zealand and Australian mathematician and computer scientist, an emeritus professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He is known for his work in mathematical logic and computational complexity theory, and in particular for founding the field of parameterised complexity together with Michael Fellows.
Downey graduated from Brisbane State High School in 1974, and earned a bachelor's degree with first class honours at the University of Queensland in 1978, and then went on to graduate school at Monash University, earning a doctorate in 1982 under the supervision of John Crossley. After holding teaching and visiting positions at the Chisholm Institute of Technology, Western Illinois University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he came to New Zealand in 1986 as a lecturer at Victoria University. He was promoted to reader in 1991, was given a personal chair at Victoria in 1995, and retired in 2023.
Downey was president of the New Zealand Mathematical Society from 2001 to 2003.
Downey is the co-author of seven books:
Downey has edited or co-edited nine books including Turing's Legacy which was an ACM Computing Reviews notable book for 2014. He is also the author or co-author of around 300 research papers, including a highly cited sequence of four papers with Michael Fellows and Karl Abrahamson setting the foundation for the study of parameterised complexity.
In 1990, Downey won the Hamilton Research Award from the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 1992, Downey won the Research Award of the New Zealand Mathematical Society "for penetrating and prolific investigations that have made him a leading expert in many aspects of recursion theory, effective algebra and complexity".
In 1994, he won the New Zealand Association of Scientists Research Award, and became a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1996. In 2006, he became the first New Zealand-based mathematician to give an Invited Lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
He has also given invited lectures at the International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and the ACM Conference on Computational Complexity. He was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2007 "for contributions to computability and complexity theory", becoming the second ACM Fellow in New Zealand, and in the same year was elected as a fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society. Also in 2007 he was awarded a James Cook Research Fellowship for research on the nature of computation.
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Rod Downey
Rodney Graham Downey (born 20 September 1957) is a New Zealand and Australian mathematician and computer scientist, an emeritus professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He is known for his work in mathematical logic and computational complexity theory, and in particular for founding the field of parameterised complexity together with Michael Fellows.
Downey graduated from Brisbane State High School in 1974, and earned a bachelor's degree with first class honours at the University of Queensland in 1978, and then went on to graduate school at Monash University, earning a doctorate in 1982 under the supervision of John Crossley. After holding teaching and visiting positions at the Chisholm Institute of Technology, Western Illinois University, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he came to New Zealand in 1986 as a lecturer at Victoria University. He was promoted to reader in 1991, was given a personal chair at Victoria in 1995, and retired in 2023.
Downey was president of the New Zealand Mathematical Society from 2001 to 2003.
Downey is the co-author of seven books:
Downey has edited or co-edited nine books including Turing's Legacy which was an ACM Computing Reviews notable book for 2014. He is also the author or co-author of around 300 research papers, including a highly cited sequence of four papers with Michael Fellows and Karl Abrahamson setting the foundation for the study of parameterised complexity.
In 1990, Downey won the Hamilton Research Award from the Royal Society of New Zealand. In 1992, Downey won the Research Award of the New Zealand Mathematical Society "for penetrating and prolific investigations that have made him a leading expert in many aspects of recursion theory, effective algebra and complexity".
In 1994, he won the New Zealand Association of Scientists Research Award, and became a fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1996. In 2006, he became the first New Zealand-based mathematician to give an Invited Lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
He has also given invited lectures at the International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science and the ACM Conference on Computational Complexity. He was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2007 "for contributions to computability and complexity theory", becoming the second ACM Fellow in New Zealand, and in the same year was elected as a fellow of the New Zealand Mathematical Society. Also in 2007 he was awarded a James Cook Research Fellowship for research on the nature of computation.
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