• Skip to Content
  • Skip to Main Navigation
  • Skip to Search

Indiana University Indiana University IU

Open Search
  • About
    • History
    • Stories
  • Awards
    • University
      • Honorary Degrees
      • University Medal
      • Bicentennial Medal
    • Presidential
      • President’s Medal for Excellence
      • Thomas Hart Benton Mural Medallion
      • Distinguished Service Medal
    • Research & Creative Activity
      • Nobel Prize
      • National Academies
      • International Academies
      • MacArthur Fellowship
      • Pulitzer Prize
      • Guggenheim Fellowship
      • Fulbright Award
      • Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
      • Distinguished Professors
      • Titled Professors
      • Wylie Innovation Catalyst Medal
      • The Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researchers
    • Artistic & Performance
      • Emmy
      • Grammy
      • Oscar
      • Tony
    • Teaching
      • Frederic Bachman Lieber Memorial Award
      • Herman Frederic Lieber Memorial Award
      • President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching
      • Sylvia E. Bowman Award
      • Thomas Ehrlich Civically Engaged Faculty Award
      • President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Technology
      • Part-Time Teaching Award
      • Lieber Memorial Associate Instructor Award
    • Service
      • Chancellor and Provost Medallion
      • Distinguished International Service Award
      • John W. Ryan Award for Distinguished Contributions to International Programs and Studies
      • E. Ross Bartley Award
      • W. George Pinnell Award for Outstanding Service
    • Historical
      • Bridging the Visibility Gap Initiative
      • IU Historical Marker Program
    • Student
      • Rhodes Scholarship
      • Marshall Scholarship
      • Mitchell Scholarship
      • Churchill Scholarship
      • Gates Cambridge Scholarship
      • Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
      • Fulbright IIE
      • Goldwater Scholarship
      • Truman Scholarship
      • Boren Scholarship and Fellowship
      • Beinecke Scholarship
      • Udall Scholarship
      • Wells Senior Recognition Award
      • Stahr Distinguished Senior Award
      • Kate Hevner Mueller Outstanding Senior Award
    • Athletic
      • Olympians
      • IU Bloomington Athletics Hall of Fame
      • IUPUI Intercollegiate Athletics Hall of Fame
      • Z.G. Clevenger Award
      • Leanne Grotke Award
      • Bill Orwig Award
    • Alumni
      • University Alumni Awards
      • Campus Alumni Awards
      • School Alumni Awards
    • Philanthropy
      • Partners in Philanthropy Award
      • Presidents Circle Laurel Pin
      • Indiana University Indianapolis Spirit of Philanthropy Award
      • IU Foundation President’s Medallion
  • Nominations
    • Teaching Awards
    • Service Awards
      • John W. Ryan Award
      • W. George Pinnell Award
    • Research and Creative Activity Awards
  • Events
    • Distinguished Professors Symposium
    • National Academies Events
    • Guggenheim Fellowship Events
    • Celebration of Teaching and Service Events
  • Search Awards
  • Contact Us

University Honors & Awards

  • Home
  • About
    • History
    • Stories
  • Awards
    • University
    • Presidential
    • Research & Creative Activity
    • Artistic & Performance
    • Teaching
    • Service
    • Historical
    • Student
    • Athletic
    • Alumni
    • Philanthropy
  • Nominations
    • Teaching Awards
    • Service Awards
    • Research and Creative Activity Awards
  • Events
    • Distinguished Professors Symposium
    • National Academies Events
    • Guggenheim Fellowship Events
    • Celebration of Teaching and Service Events
  • Search
  • Search Awards
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Awards

Douglas R. Hofstadter

Douglas R. Hofstadter

Awards

Bicentennial Medal - 2020
National Academies - 2009
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
National Academies - 2009
American Philosophical Society
Distinguished Professor - 2007
Titled Professor - 1994
College Professor
Pulitzer Prize - 1980
General Non-Fiction
Guggenheim Fellow - 1980

About Douglas R. Hofstadter

Professor Hofstadter received his B.S. in mathematics from Stanford University (1965), and his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of Oregon (1972, 1975). His Pulitzer-prize-winning book Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979) has had considerable impact on people in many disciplines, ranging from philosophy to mathematics to artificial intelligence, to music, and beyond. He has written four other books, numerous articles, and, for a number of years, wrote a column for Scientific American.

Hofstadter's research is driven by a long-standing interest in both creativity and consciousness. To study these abstract ideas in a concrete manner, he has focused on designing and implementing, in collaboration with his graduate students, models of high-level perception and analogical thought in carefully-designed idealized domains. Several computer programs that perceive structures and discover subtle as well as simple analogies by means of a tight interplay between concepts in long-term memory and perceptual agents in short-term memory have been realized over the years; these include Copycat, Tabletop, and LetterSpirit. Another project - Metacat, which significantly deepens Copycat by bringing in episodic memory and some degree of self-awareness - is currently well under way.

More recently Professor Hofstadter has been deeply engaged in poetry translation, and his 1997 book, Le Ton beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language, touches on this issue in many diverse ways. From it came his 1999 verse translation of Alexander Pushkin's novel in verse, Eugene Onegin.

Professor Hofstadter also studies and writes about cognitive phenomena in a number of other areas. Some of these are: the relationship between words and concepts; the mechanisms underlying human error-making (especially in language); the mechanisms underlying discovery and creation in mathematics, music, and certain other domains; the relationship between analogy and translation; the challenge of sorting the wheat from the chaff in AI and cognitive science, and the philosophy of mind. Among the most important of Professor Hofstadter's recent explorations is the geometry of the triangle and the complex interrelationships between a triangle's many centers, central circles, central lines, and so forth.

He was awarded Distinguished Professor in 2007 and received the IU Bicentennial Medal in September 2020 in recognition of his distinguished contributions to Indiana University.

  • University
  • Presidential
  • Research & Creative Activity
  • Artistic & Performance
  • Teaching
  • Service
  • Historical
  • Student
  • Athletic
  • Alumni
  • Philanthropy
  • Office of the President

Indiana University

Accessibility | College Scorecard | Open to All | Privacy Notice | Copyright © 2025 The Trustees of Indiana University