# Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science

The IEEE Annual Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (FOCS) is an academic conference in the field of theoretical computer science. FOCS is sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society.
As Fich (1996) writes, FOCS and its annual Association for Computing Machinery counterpart STOC (the Symposium on Theory of Computing) are considered the two top conferences in theoretical computer science, considered broadly: they “are forums for some of the best work throughout theory of computing that promote breadth among theory of computing researchers and help to keep the community together.” Johnson (1984) includes regular attendance at FOCS and STOC as one of several defining characteristics of theoretical computer scientists.

## Awards

The Knuth Prize for outstanding contributions to theoretical computer science is presented alternately at FOCS and STOC. Works of the highest quality presented at the conference are awarded the Best Paper Award. In addition, the Machtey Award is presented to the best student-authored paper in FOCS.

## History

In 1960–1965, FOCS was known as the Symposium on Switching Circuit Theory and Logical Design, and in 1966–1974 it was known as the Symposium on Switching and Automata Theory. The current name has been used since 1975. Since 1973, the cover page of the conference proceedings has featured an artwork entitled synapse, by Alvy Ray Smith, who has also been the author of three papers in the conference. The publisher uses the acronym SFCS on their web sites for the conferences in 1975 to 1987.

## Location

FOCS is almost exclusively held in North America, and in particular in the United States, with few exceptions.
| Year | PC and Local Chairs | Location | Steering Committee | Test of Time Award Committee |
| 1975 | Daniel Rosenkrantz (PC Chair), Eugene Lawler (Local Chair) | Berkeley | | |
| 1976 | Michael Fischer (PC Chair), Meera Blattner (Local Chair) | Houston | | |
| 1977 | Paul Young (PC Chair), John Savage (Local Chair) | Providence | | |
| 1978 | Nancy Lynch (PC Chair), William Rounds (Local Chair) | Ann Arbor | | |
| 1979 | Rao Kosaraju (PC Chair), Rolando Peinado (Local Chair) | San Juan, Puerto Rico | | |
| 1980 | | Syracuse | | |
| 1981 | Arnold Rosenberg (PC Chair), Patrick Fischer (Local Chair) | Nashville | | |
| 1982 | | Chicago | | |
| 1983 | Lawrence Snyder (PC Chair), Peter Downey (Local Chair) | Tucson | | |
| 1984 | | Singer Island | | |
| 1985 | Robert Tarjan (PC Chair), Eugene Luks (Local Chair) | Portland | | |
| 1986 | John Hopcroft (PC Chair), Charles Rackoff (Local Chair) | Toronto | Ashok Chandra (TCMF Chair) | |
| 1987 | Tom Leighton (PC Chair), Seymour Ginsburg (Local Chair), Ming-Deh Huang (Local Chair) | Los Angeles | " | |
| 1988 | | White Plains |
| 1989 | Zvi Galil (PC Chair), Jon Reif (Local Chair) | Research Triangle Park | Christos Papadimitriou (TCMF Chair) | |
| 1990 | Mihalis Yannakakis (PC Chair), Jonathan Turner (Local Chair) | St. Louis | " | |
| 1991 | Mike Sipser (PC Chair), Tom Leighton (Local Chair), Alok Aggarwal (Local Chair) | San Juan, Puerto Rico | " | |
| 1992 | Michael Luby (PC Chair), Gary Miller (Local Chair) | Pittsburgh | | |
| 1993 | Leonidas J. Guibas (PC Chair), Andrei Broder (Local Chair) | Palo Alto | | |
| 1994 | Shafi Goldwasser (PC Chair), Sorin Istrail (Local Chair) | Santa Fe | | |
| 1995 | Prabhakar Raghavan (PC Chair), Aditi Dhagat (Local Chair), Rene Peralta (Local Chair) | Milwaukee | | |
| 1996 | Martin Tompa (PC Chair), Carl Smith (Local Chair) | Burlington | | |
| 1997 | Anna Karlin (PC Chair), Victor Milenkovic (Local Chair) | Miami Beach | | |
| 1998 | Rajeev Motwani, Michael Mitzenmacher (Local Chair) | Palo Alto | | |
| 1999 | Paul Beame (PC Chair), Piotr Berman (Local Chair) | New York | | |
| 2000 | Avrim Blum (PC Chair), Marek Chrobak (Local Chair), Tao Jiang (Local Chair) | Redondo Beach | | |
| 2001 | Moni Naor (PC Chair), Lawrence Larmore (Local Chair), Wolfgang Bein | Las Vegas | | |
| 2002 | Bernard Chazelle (PC Chair) Arvind Gupta (Local Chair) | Vancouver, Canada | | |
| 2003 | Madhu Sudan (PC Chair), Michael Mitzenmacher (Local Chair) | Cambridge | | |
| 2004 | Eli Upfal(PC Chair), Giuseppe F. Italiano (Local Chair) | Rome, Italy | | |
| 2005 | Eva Tardos (PC Chair), Avrim Blum (Local Chair), Anupam Gupta (Local Chair) | Pittsburgh | | |
| 2006 | Sanjeev Arora, Satish Rao (Local Chair) | Berkeley | | |
| 2007 | Alistair Sinclair (PC Chair), Philip Klein (Local Chair), Anna Lysyanskaya (Local Chair), Claire Mathieu (Local Chair) | Providence | | |
| 2008 | R. Ravi (PC Chair), Sudipto Guha (Local Chair), Sanjeev Khanna (Local Chair), Sampath Kannan (Local Chair) | Philadelphia | Paul Beame (TCMF Chair) | |
| 2009 | Dan Spielman (PC Chair), David Shmoys (General co-Chair), Milena Mihail (Local Chair), Prasad Tetali (Local Chair) | Atlanta | " | |
| 2010 | Luca Trevisan (PC Chair), Larry Larmore (Local Chair) | Las Vegas | " | |
| 2011 | Rafail Ostrovsky (PC Chair), Marek Chrobak (Local Chair), Neal Yong (Local Chair), | Palm Springs | " | |
| 2012 | Tim Roughgarden (PC Chair), Rebecca Wright (Local Chair), Lisa Zhang (Local Chair), Boaz Barak (Workshop Chair), Avrim Blum (Workshop Chair) | New Brunswick | David Shmoys (TCMF Chair) | |
| 2013 | Omer Reingold (PC Chair), Christos Papadimitriou (Local Chair), Umesh Vazirani (Local Chair), Moses Charikar (Workshop Chair), Chris Umans (Workshop Chair) | Berkeley | " | |
| 2014 | Boaz Barak (PC Chair), Rebecca Wright (Local Chair), Lisa Zhang (Local Chair), Sanjeev Khanna (Workshop Chair), Kunal Talwar (Workshop Chair) | Philadelphia | " | |
| 2015 | Venkatesan Guruswami (PC Chair), Kristin Kane (Local Chair), Prasad Raghavendra, Luca Trevisan | Berkeley | Rafail Ostrovsky (TCMF Chair) | |
| 2016 | Irit Dinur (PC Chair), Rebecca Wright (Local Chair), Lisa Zhang (Local Chair), Alexandr Andoni (Workshop Chair), Aleksander Mądry (Workshop Chair) | New Brunswick | " | |
| 2017 | Chris Umans (PC Chair), Andrew Jan (Local Chair), Prasad Raghavendra (Local Chair), Aleksander Mądry (Workshop Chair), James R. Lee (Workshop Chair) | Berkeley | " | |
| 2018 | Mikkel Thorup (PC Chair), Adi Rosén (Local Chair), Sophie Laplante (Local co-Chair), Alessandro Luongo (Local co-Chair), Robert Kleinberg (Workshop Chair), James R. Lee (Workshop Chair) | Paris, France | Yuval Rabani (TCMF Chair), Shang-Hua Teng (TCMF Vice Chair), Avrim Blum, Shafi Goldwasser, Rafail Ostrovsky, Toniann Pitassi | |
| 2019 | David Zuckerman (PC Chair), Michael Dinitz (Local Chair), Maria-Florina Balcan (Workshop Chair), Robert Kleinberg (Workshop Chair) | Baltimore | " | Paul Beame, Allan Borodin, Uriel Feige, Monika Henzinger, Johan Håstad (chair), Mihalis Yannakakis (inaugural award) |
| 2020 | Sandy Irani (PC Chair), Debmalya Panigrahi (Local Chair), Kamesh Munagala (Local Chair), Maria-Florina Balcan (Workshop Chair), Alexander Sherstov (Workshop Chair) | Virtual (planned for Raleigh/Durham) | " | Paul Beame (chair), Uriel Feige, Anna Karlin, Yishay Mansour, Claire Mathieu, Luca Trevisan |
| 2021 | Nisheeth Vishnoi (PC Chair), Alexandra Kolla (Local/Finance Chair), Vincent Cohen-Addad (Workshop Chair), Alexander Sherstov (Workshop Chair) | Virtual (planned for Denver) | " | Russell Impagliazzo, Yael Tauman Kalai, Anna Karlin, Yishay Mansour, Michael Saks, Luca Trevisan (chair) |
| 2022 | Jelani Nelson (PC chair), Alexandra Kolla (Local Chair), Rong Ge (Finance Chair), Vincent Cohen-Addad (Workshop Chair), Henry Yuen (Workshop Chair) | Denver | Shang-Hua Teng (TCMF Chair), Venkatesan Guruswami (TCMF Vice Chair), Avrim Blum, Shafi Goldwasser, Rafail Ostrovsky, Toniann Pitassi, Yuval Rabani | Russell Impagliazzo, Yael Tauman Kalai, Michael Saks (chair), Alistair Sinclair, Éva Tardos, David Zuckerman |
| 2023 | Amit Sahai (PC Chair), Shubhangi Saraf (PC Co-chair), Thomas Vidick (PC Co-chair), Alexandra Kolla (General Chair), Pravesh Kothari (Workshop Chair), Henry Yuen (Workshop Chair) | Santa Cruz | " | Jin-Yi Cai, Faith Ellen, Leonard Schulman, Alistair Sinclair, Éva Tardos, David Zuckerman (chair) |
| 2024 | Santosh Vempala (PC Chair), Aravindan Vijayaraghavan (General Chair), Lev Reyzin (General Chair), Mohsen Ghaffari (Workshop Chair), Pravesh Kothari (Workshop Chair) | Chicago | Ran Canetti (TCMF Chair), Rocco Servedio (TCMF Vice Chair) | Jin-Yi Cai (chair), Julia Chuzhoy, Constantinos Daskalakis, Faith Ellen, Shafi Goldwasser, Leonard Schulman |