Skip to content
Trackfame
Join
Leslie Valiant
Science Technology

Leslie Valiant

Theorist who created a mathematical foundation for machine learning

28 March 1949 United Kingdom Verified by our editors
Follow 0 followers Correction Cite
Age
77 yrs
Birthday in 143 days
Works listed
2
Paper, Book
Honours
3
Most recent 2010
Profile views
1
0 followers

Leslie Valiant is a British computer scientist at Harvard whose 1984 “probably approximately correct” (PAC) model gave machine learning a mathematical foundation. He also made major contributions to complexity theory and parallel computing, and received the Turing Award in 2010.

Biography

Education

Born in Budapest, Valiant grew up in Britain and studied at King’s College, Cambridge, Imperial College London and the University of Warwick, where he earned his PhD in 1974.

Learning theory

His 1984 paper “A Theory of the Learnable” defined what it means for a computer to learn a concept from examples efficiently and with high probability. PAC learning became the basis of computational learning theory and helped make machine learning a rigorous science.

Complexity and parallelism

Valiant introduced the complexity class #P for counting problems and showed that computing the permanent of a matrix is hard. He also proposed the bulk synchronous parallel (BSP) model for parallel computers.

Harvard

He has been a professor at Harvard since 1982. His book Probably Approximately Correct (2013) explains his ideas about learning and evolution for general readers.

Timeline

  1. 1949

    Born in Budapest, Hungary

  2. 1974

    PhD from Warwick

  3. 1979

    Introduces #P complexity

  4. 1982

    Joins Harvard

  5. 1984

    A Theory of the Learnable

  6. 1986

    Nevanlinna Prize

  7. 1990

    Bulk synchronous parallel model

  8. 2010

    Turing Award

Notable works

  • 1984

    A Theory of the Learnable Paper

  • 2013

    Probably Approximately Correct Book

Awards and honours

  • Nevanlinna Prize

    1986

  • Knuth Prize

    1997

  • Turing Award

    2010

Did you know?

  1. 1

    He has argued that evolution itself can be seen as a form of learning algorithm.

  2. 2

    His work on counting problems is widely cited in physics too.

  3. 3

    He is a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Connections

Also born on 28 March

Frequently asked

Who is Leslie Valiant?

Leslie Valiant is a British computer scientist at Harvard whose 1984 “probably approximately correct” (PAC) model gave machine learning a mathematical foundation. He also made major contributions to complexity theory and parallel computing, and received the Turing Award in 2010.

How old is Leslie Valiant?

Leslie Valiant is 77 years old, born on 28 March 1949 in Budapest, Hungary.

Where is Leslie Valiant from?

Leslie Valiant was born in Budapest, Hungary.

What is Leslie Valiant known for?

Leslie Valiant is best known for Probably approximately correct (PAC) learning; complexity of counting; Turing Award 2010.

What awards has Leslie Valiant received?

Notable honours include Nevanlinna Prize (1986), Knuth Prize (1997), Turing Award (2010).

References

  1. Leslie Valiant — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  2. Leslie Valiant — Britannica. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  3. Official website. people.deas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  4. Leslie Valiant (Q93154) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.

Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Leslie Valiant”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more

External links

Official website Website Wikipedia
Filed under Harvard UniversityMachine learningTuring Award Computer ScientistProfessor

About this profile

Cite this page

“Leslie Valiant.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/leslie-valiant

Discussion 0

Sign in or create an account to join the discussion.

No comments yet — be the first.

More in Science

See all
Marvin Minsky Science

Marvin Minsky

Co-founder of MIT’s artificial intelligence laboratory and a founding father of AI

1927 – 2016

Peter Naur Science

Peter Naur

Danish computer scientist who edited the ALGOL 60 report and refined Backus–Naur form

1928 – 2016

Yann LeCun Science

Yann LeCun

French-American AI pioneer who invented convolutional neural networks

Born 1959

Konrad Zuse Science

Konrad Zuse

German engineer who built the first working programmable computer

1910 – 1995

Margaret Hamilton Science

Margaret Hamilton

MIT engineer who led the software for the Apollo Moon landings and coined “software engineering”

1936 – 2026

Rajeev Motwani Science

Rajeev Motwani

Stanford professor who mentored Google’s founders

1962 – 2009