Computer Science Professor Michael Franz of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) has earned UCI’s Distinguished Professor title. This distinction is reserved for faculty who have achieved the highest levels of scholarship over the course of their careers and earned national and international level distinctions and honors of the highest level.

Franz more than meets the qualifications, having received the prestigious $100,000 ACM Charles P. “Chuck” Thacker Breakthrough in Computing Award in 2020 for his pioneering development of just-in-time (JIT) compilation techniques. He was also honored with the €60,000 Humboldt Research Award in 2019, given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, for making significant contributions to his field. This is in addition to having been recognized as a fellow by all four of the global professional organizations that have a chapter for computer scientists: the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).

The promotion of Franz to the highest level of UCI professorship — the crowning pinnacle of a professor’s career — is reflective of his years of external recognition.

In earning the Distinguished Professor title, Franz joins fellow ICS faculty members Pierre Baldi, Michael Carey, Rina Dechter, Nikil Dutt, Michael Goodrich, Ramesh Jain, Alexandru Nicolau, Gene Tsudik and Vijay Vazirani.

— Shani Murray