Jack Minker (Math MS '50) receives the 2011 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award. 

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The award notification is below and can be read here. Jack Minker's acceptence speech can be found here.

2011 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award

American Computer Scientist and Indian Pediatrician Presented Award at The New York Academy of Sciences

NEW YORK, September 30, 2011-The New York Academy of Sciences Human Rights of Scientists Committee this year chose American computer scientist Dr. Jack Minker and Indian pediatrician Dr. Binayak Sen to receive the 2011 Heinz R. Pagels Award at the Academy's 193rd Annual Meeting on September 22, for their tireless work in advancing human rights. A surprise guest, the 2009 Heinz R. Pagels Award co-recipient, Dr. Kamiar Alaei, who was imprisoned at the time of his award, also addressed the Academy.

Professor Emeritus Jack Minker is a leading authority in artificial intelligence, deductive databases, logic programming, and nonmonotonic reasoning. He is also an internationally recognized leader in the field of human rights of computer scientists. Dr. Minker has been Vice-Chairman of the Committee of Concerned Scientists since 1973, and served as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights (CSFHR) of the Association for Computing Machinery from 1980 to 1989.

As Vice-Chairman of the CSFHR, Dr. Minker edited and wrote four extensive reports, published in the Communications of the ACM, on the status of the human rights of computer professionals throughout the world, in which all known computer professionals whose human rights had been violated were listed. A total of 304 computer scientists from 13 countries were listed. Dr. Minker led the struggle in the computer community for the release of Anatoly Shcharansky from the late Soviet Union, before his case was generally recognized as significant. He also led the fight for the release of the internationally known cyberneticist Professor Aleksandr Lerner from the Soviet Union.