The accolade from the Association of Computing Machinery recognizes Shankar’s fundamental contributions in areas such as formal methods and system assurance.
Natarajan Shankar, a senior distinguished scientist in SRI’s Computer Science Lab, has been named a 2025 Association for Computing Machinery Fellow for his for contributions in automated reasoning, mechanized metatheory, formalized mathematics, formal methods, and system assurance.
The ACM’s 2025 honorees were recognized by their peers “for achieving remarkable results through their technical innovations and/or service to the field” and were selected from among ACM’s global membership of more than 100,000 computing professionals.
Shankar’s published research ranges from fundamental mathematics to system software. Among other accomplishments, he created the highly influential Prototype Verification System (PVS), a benchmark system for developing proofs and verifying algorithms against which other systems are compared. This research earned Shankar the 2012 CAV Award from the International Conference on Computer-Aided Verification, which he shared with SRI’s Sam Owre and John Rushby.
Shankar was also the 2022 recipient of CADE’s Herbrand Award for Distinguished Contributions to Automated Reasoning.
Shankar’s current research ranges from foundational aspects of logic and programming to practical applications in software development, as well as system certification.
Shankar’s Ph.D. thesis was published as the book Metamathematics, Machines, and Goedel’s Proof by Cambridge University Press.
Shankar was named an SRI Fellow in 2009. The SRI Fellows award is SRI’s highest technical honor, recognizing sustained and exceptional technical, scientific, and professional contributions to solving important problems for our clients and society.
