L to r: Bo Hammer, Vice President of the Franklin Awards;
Dennis Wint, President and CEO of the Franklin Institute; 2004 Franklin
Laureate Dr. Richard M. Karp; and Dean Selcuk Guceri of the College of
Engineering
On April 28, the Department of Computer Science and Drexel University hosted a symposium on Computational Complexity in honor of Dr. Richard M. Karp. Dr. Karp is the recipient of the 2004 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science for his insights into computational complexity -- the theory that describes what computers can and cannot solve in a reasonable amount of time. The groundbreaking work of Karp and others 30 years ago has had practical consequences in e-commerce, telecommunications, industrial and corporate planning, genetic engineering, and almost every situation in which a computer is used.