PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Toniann Pitassi

Also known as Toni Pitassi

Toniann Pitassi is a computer scientist whose work on computational complexity reaches into fair machine learning. She earned degrees at Pennsylvania State University and a PhD at the University of Toronto in 1992. Her 2013 paper Learning Fair Representations, co-written with four others, received ICML's Test of Time Award in 2023. In 2022 she was named to the National Academy of Sciences, and she also held a Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute. She is a professor at Columbia University, which she joined in 2021.

Timeline

  1. 1985–1992

    Degrees at Penn State and Toronto

    She earns bachelor's and master's degrees at Pennsylvania State University in 1985 and a PhD at the University of Toronto in 1992.

  2. 1992–2001

    Postdocs, then back to Toronto

    She does postdoctoral work at UC San Diego and then becomes an assistant professor at Pittsburgh. In 2001 she returns to Toronto as a professor.

  3. 1993

    Pigeonhole principle lower bounds

    With Paul Beame and Russell Impagliazzo, she publishes Exponential lower bounds for the pigeonhole principle in 1993.

  4. 2013

    A paper on fair classification

    She co-writes Learning Fair Representations in 2013, a paper on fair classification presented at the International Conference on Machine Learning.

  5. 2021

    An EATCS award for complexity

    The European Association for Theoretical Computer Science selects her for its EATCS Award in 2021, citing her contributions to computational complexity.

  6. 2022

    National Academy and an AI chair

    She is named to the National Academy of Sciences in 2022, and she is also the Canada CIFAR AI Chair at the Vector Institute.

  7. 2023

    An ICML test of time award

    ICML gives its Test of Time Award in 2023 to Learning Fair Representations, a paper she co-authors with Richard Zemel, Yu Wu, Kevin Swersky and Cynthia Dwork.

  8. 2026

    A Simons Institute visit

    She joins Columbia's computer science department in 2021. In Fall 2026 she is a visiting scientist at the Simons Institute, and she is a professor at Columbia University.

Sources and credits

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  1. Toniann Pitassi elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences web.cs.toronto.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  2. Toniann Pitassi cs.columbia.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  3. Toniann Pitassi - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  4. Learning Fair Representations proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 14 October 2026.
  5. Test-of-Time Award icml.cc. Checked 14 October 2026.
  6. The EATCS Award 2021 - Laudatio for Toniann (Toni) Pitassi eatcs.org. Checked 14 October 2026.
  7. Toni Pitassi recognized for contributions to theoretical computer science web.cs.toronto.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.
  8. Toni Pitassi simons.berkeley.edu. Checked 14 October 2026.