As part of the celebration of its 150th anniversary, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi, Romania, presented an honorary professorship (Professor Honoris Causa) to alumnus Sorin Istrail. “I am very humbled and honored to receive this recognition,” he said.

Sorin’s alma mater, where he earned a B.S. in computer science in 1975, also was celebrating the centennial of its Alexandru Myller Mathematical Seminar. Sorin helped commemorate the anniversary by participating in the seminar as an invited lecturer, delivering a technical talk titled “Concepts of Mathematical Rigor for Algorithms in De-randomization, Statistical Physics, and Molecular Biology.”

The lecture’s ...