Ackermann Award | Toghrul Karimov

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Toghrul Karimov (2015), former MSc Computer Science student at Keble, has been awarded the 2025 Ackermann Award – a prestigious prize for PhD dissertations in Logic in Computer Science – for his outstanding thesis, Algorithmic Verification of Linear Dynamical Systems.

Reflecting on this achievement, Toghrul commented "The roots of my doctoral thesis undoubtedly go to the things I learned and the people I met while I was an undergraduate at Keble. I am honoured and relieved that my work was received so well by the theoretical computer science community."

Toghrul completed his PhD last year at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems under the supervision of Keble Fellow by Special Election Professor Joël Ouaknine. Joël writes “The Ackermann Award is considered to be the top award worldwide for PhD dissertations in the general area of "Logic in Computer Science", itself a broad subfield of theoretical computer science. Within this area, Toghrul's thesis makes groundbreaking contributions to the mathematical analysis of discrete linear dynamical systems, through the design of novel algorithms that allow us to rigorously predict and certify the behaviour of such systems, particularly in the context of software verification and control theory. At the same time, Toghrul's work builds new theoretical bridges between contemporary mathematics and computer science (e.g. between number theory and automata theory), and opens up exciting directions for future research.”