Vladimir Levenshtein

Updated: 11/16/2019 by Computer Hope
Vladimir Levenshtein

Name: Vladimir Losifovich Levenshtein

Born: 1935

Computer-related contributions

  • Russian scientist known for the Levenshtein algorithm, and the Levenshtein distance, which he developed in 1965. The Levenshtein distance is the minimum number of changes required to transform one string to another, one character at a time. The algorithm defines the process of determining the Levenshtein distance for any two strings.
  • Interested in information theory, combinatorial design and error-correcting codes.

Significant publications

  • Association schemes and coding theory (1998).
  • Binary codes capable of correcting deletions, insertions, and reversals (1965).

Honors and awards

  • IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal (2006).
  • Fellow of the IEEE Information Theory Society.

Related computer pioneers

Websites