Rohit Jivanlal Parikh is an Indian-American mathematician, logician, computer scientist and philosopher known for his contributions to mathematical logic, recursion theory, proof theory, epistemic logic, game theory, formal languages, and social software. and David Ellerman. He is a Distinguished Professor at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York (CUNY).
He completed his undergraduate studies at Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude with honors in physics in 1957. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1962 under the supervision of Hartley Rogers Jr and Burton Dreben.
Parikh was selected as a Fellow of Harvard University.
Parikh served on the faculty of Boston University from 1967 to 1982 before joining the City University of New York (CUNY), where he was appointed Distinguished Professor in 1982. He held this title until 2023.
Parikh has been affiliated with the fields of computer science, mathematics, and philosophy. Earlier in his career he taught at Panjab University in India during 1964âÂÂ1965. His academic appointments include visiting and research positions at Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Laboratory for Computer Science, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University, ETH Zurich, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, SUNY Buffalo, Panjab University, and Bristol University.
Parikh is also one of the founders of the Indian Conference on Logic and Applications (ICLA).
ParikhâÂÂs early work made contributions to recursion theory, proof theory, and formal languages. He is particularly known in theoretical computer science for work related to ParikhâÂÂs theorem, which concerns the commutative image of context-free languages and their semi-linear sets. His interests expanded over time to include non-standard analysis, logic of programs, epistemic logic (logic of knowledge), belief revision, and game theory. Parikh is also recognized for advancing the interdisciplinary field of âÂÂsocial software,â which applies logical, computational, and game-theoretic techniques to analyze social procedures and algorithms such as elections, communication protocols, and decision-making systems.
Rohit Parikh was married from 1968 to 1994 to Carol Parikh (née Geris), who is best known for her stories and biography of Oscar Zariski, The Unreal Life of Oscar Zariski.
Parikh is a nontheist opposing abortions. To fight abortions he joined the Atheist and Agnostic Pro-Life League.