E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize

Since 1998, the Association for Logic, Language, and Information (FoLLI) has been awarding the annual E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize to outstanding Ph.D. dissertations in Logic, Language, and Information, with financial support of the E.W. Beth Foundation.

The winners of the 2024 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize are:

  • Aliaume Lopez, First Order Preservation Theorems in Finite Model Theory: Locality, Topology, and Limit Constructions, École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay
  • Konstantinos Kogkalidis, Dependency as Modality, Parsing as Permutation. A Neurosymbolic Perspective on Categorial Grammars, Utrecht University

Information about the qualifications for the 2024 E.W. Beth Dissertation Prize:
 – Ph.D. dissertations concerning a topic in Logic, Language, or Information are eligible for the prize, if the degree was awarded  between January 1st and December 31st, 2023.
 – There are no restrictions on the nationality, ethnicity, age, gender or employment status of the author of the nominated dissertation, nor on the university, academic department or scientific institution formally conferring the Ph.D. degree, nor on the language in which the dissertation has originally been written.
 –  In accordance with the aim of the Beth Foundation to continue and extend the work of the Dutch logician Evert Willem Beth, nominations are invited of excellent dissertations on topics in the broad remit of ESSLLI, including current topics in philosophical and mathematical logic, computer science logic, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, history of logic, history of the philosophy of science and scientific philosophy in general, as well as the current theoretical and foundational developments in information and computation, language, and cognition. Dissertations with results more broadly impacting various research areas in their interdisciplinary investigations are especially solicited.
 –  If a nominated dissertation has originally been written in a language other than English, its dossier should still contain the required 10 page English abstract, see below. If the committee decides that a nominated dissertation in a language other than English requires translation to English for proper evaluation, the committee can transfer its nomination to the competition for the 2025 prize. The English translation must in such cases be submitted before the deadline of the call for nominations in that year. The committee may recommend the Beth Foundation to consider supporting such nominated dissertations for English translation, upon request by the author of the dissertation.

The prize consists of:
–  a certificate
– a donation of 3000 euros, provided by the E.W. Beth Foundation. In case two dissertations are selected, the prize will be split between the winners.
– an invitation to submit the dissertation, possibly after revision, for publication in FoLLI Publications on Logic, Language and Information (Springer)

General submission guidelines:
– Only digital submissions are accepted, without exception. Hard copy submissions are not allowed. The following documents are to be submitted in the nomination dossier:
– The original dissertation in pdf format (ps/doc/rtf etc. not acceptable).
– A 10-page English abstract of the dissertation, presenting the main results of each chapter.
– A letter of nomination from the dissertation supervisor, which concisely describes the scope and significance of the dissertation, stating when the degree was officially awarded and the members of the Ph.D. committee. Nominations should contain the address, phone and email details of the nominator.
– Two additional letters of support, including at least one from a referee not affiliated with the academic institution that awarded the Ph.D. degree, nor otherwise related to the nominee (e.g. former teachers, supervisors, co-authors, publishers or relatives) or the dissertation. Thesis committee members (not from the awarding institution) are eligible as referees.
 – Self-nominations are not possible.
– FoLLI is committed to diversity and inclusion and we welcome dissertations from all under-represented groups.

Watch a short interview with some former members of the E. W. Beth Dissertation Prize committee and awardees here!

The prize was awarded by the chair of the FoLLI board at a ceremony during the 35th ESSLLI summer school in Leuven, Belgium, 29 July – 9 August 2024.

Beth dissertation prize committee 2024:
Guy Emerson (University of Cambridge)
Chris Fermüller (TU Wien)
Herman Geuvers (Radboud University Nijmegen)
Erich Grädel (RWTH Aachen University)
Sandra Kiefer (University of Oxford)
Laura Kovacs (TU Wien)
Clemens Kupke (University of Strathclyde)
Larry Moss (Indiana University Bloomington)
Reinhard Muskens (ILLC, University of Amsterdam)
Alberto Naibo (IHPST – Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Elaine Pimentel (University College London, chair)
Francesca Poggiolesi (IHPST – Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)
Lutz Schröder (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg)
Ana Sokolova (Paris Lodron University of Salzburg)
Benjamin Spector (CNRS/ENS-PSL/EHESS)
Shane Steinert-Threlkeld (University of Washington)

Previous recipients of the prize:

  • 2023 Gabriele Vanoni, On Reasonable Space and Time Cost Models for the λ-Calculus, University of Bologna
  • 2022 Alexander Bentkamp, Superposition for Higher Order Logics, Vrije Universities Amsterdam
  • 2021
    • Ilaria Canavotto, Where Responsibility Takes You, ILLC, Amsterdam
    • Martin Lück , Team Logic Axioms, Expressiveness, Complexity, Universität Hannover
  • 2020
    • Marcin Wągiel, Subatomic Quantification, Masaryk University, Brno
    • Juan Aguilera, Between the Finite and the Infinite, TU Wien
  • 2019 Dr. Bartosz Wcisło, Understanding the strength of compositional truth, University of Warsaw
  • 2018 İsmail İlkan Ceylan, Query Answering in Probabilistic Data and Knowledge Bases, Technical University of Dresden
  • 2017
    • Antoine Amarilli, Leveraging the structure of uncertain data, Télécom ParisTech
    • Ronald de Haan, Parameterized Complexity in the Polynomial Hierarchy, Technical University of Vienna
  • 2016 Thomas Zeume, Small Dynamic Complexity Classes, University of Dortmund
  • 2015 Michał Skrzypczak, Descriptive set theoretic methods in automata theory, University of Warsaw
  • 2014 Thomas Graf, Local and Transderivational Constraints in Syntax and Semantics, University of California, Los Angeles
  • 2013
    • Wesley H. Holliday, Knowing What Follows: Epistemic Closure and Epistemic Logic, Stanford University
    • Ekaterina Lebedeva, Expressing Discourse Dynamics via Continuations, University of Lorraine
  • 2012
    • Andreas Kapsner, Logics and Falsifications, University of Barcelona
    • Daniel R. Licata, Dependently Typed Programming with Domain-Specific Logics, Carnegie Mellon University
  • 2011
    • Nils Bulling, Modelling and Verifying Abilities of Rational Agents, TU Clausthal
    • Mohan Ganesalingam, The Language of Mathematics, University of Cambridge
  • 2010 Yury Savateev, Algorithmic Complexity of Fragments of the Lambek Calculus, Moscow State University
  • 2009
    • Emmanuel Chemla, Presuppositions and Scalar Implicatures: Formal and Experimental Studies, Ecole Normale Superieure de Paris
    • Lukasz Kaiser, Logic and Games on Automatic Structures, Aachen University
  • 2008
    • Tomas Brazdil, Verification of Probabilistic Recursive Sequential Programs, Masaryk University
    • Marco Kuhlmann, Dependency Structures and Lexicalized Grammars, Saarland University
  • 2007 Gabriele Puppis, Automata for Branching and Layered Structures, University of Udine
  • 2006
    • Leszek Kolodziejczyk, Truth Definitions and higher-Order Logics in Finite Models, Warsaw University
    • Chung-chieh (Ken) Shan, Linguistic Side Effects, Harvard University
  • 2005 Ash Asudeh, Resumption as Resource Management, Stanford University
  • 2004 John T. Hale, Grammar, Uncertainty and Sentence Processing, Michigan State University
  • 2003 Jason Baldridge, Lexically Specified Derivational Control in Combinatory Categorial Grammar, University of Edinburgh
  • 2002 Maria Aloni, Quantification under conceptual covers, University of Amsterdam
  • 2001 Gerald Penn, The Algebraic Structure of Attributed Type Signatures, University of Toronto
  • 2000
    • Jelle Gerbrandy, Bisimulations on Planet Kripke, University of Amsterdam
    • Khalil Sima’an, Learning Efficient Disambiguation, Universities of Amsterdam and of Utrecht
  • 1999
    • Peter Grünwald, The Minimum Description Length Principle and Reasoning under Uncertainty, University of Amsterdam
    • Matthew Stone, Modality in Dialogue: Planning, Pragmatics and Computation, University of Pennsylvania
  • 1998
    • Nir Friedman, Modeling Beliefs in Dynamic Systems, Stanford University
    • Lisa Matthewson, Determiner Systems and Quantificational Strategies: Evidence from Salish, University of British Columbia