Association for Computing Machinery Selects Cynthia Rudin for Outstanding Achievement

Cynthia Rudin has been named a Fellow of the world's preeminent computing society — the Association for Computing Machinery — for her contributions to and leadership in interpretable machine learning and societal applications.

The Gilbert, Louis, and Edward Lehrman Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Rudin “represent the top one percent of professionals in our association,” explained ACM President Yannis Ioannidis. 

Rudin’s research focuses on interpretable machine learning and its applications — that is, designing machine learning models whose reasoning processes people can understand. This includes algorithms for extremely sparse models, interpretable neural networks, interpretable matching methods for causal inference, and dimension reduction for data visualization. Her Interpretable Machine Learning Lab at Duke applies these techniques to critical societal problems in healthcare, criminal justice, materials science, computer vision, as well as other domains. 

ACM Fellows serve as ambassadors for the organization and are often called upon to offer their expertise to the media, public officials and industry leaders. The 71 ACM Fellows for 2025 will be formally recognized during an awards banquet on June 13 in San Francisco.

Within the current 43 primary faculty in the Department of Computer Science, nine are ACM Fellows.