Rudolf Carnap
Philosophy faculty, 1954–62; Research Philosopher, 1962–70
UCLA Logic Center
Brief History of Logic at UCLA
For more than seventy years, UCLA has been a prominent focal point for mathematical logic, bringing together influential researchers, students, and visitors.
Timeline of logic at UCLA
Faculty
Student
Visiting faculty
Logic Center Fellow
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Logic took root at UCLA with the arrival of Rudolf Carnap and Richard Montague, followed by C.C. Chang in 1958. Montague and Chang began training graduate students and established the biweekly Logic Colloquium, which became a principal meeting place for logicians throughout Southern California.
Richard Montague
Philosophy faculty, 1955–71
C.C. Chang
Mathematics faculty, 1958–90
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The community expanded rapidly with Abraham Robinson, Yiannis Moschovakis, and Alonzo Church. This was an unusually interdisciplinary period: foundational mathematics, computability, modal logic, philosophy of language, and Montague’s groundbreaking semantics for natural language developed through close contact among Mathematics, Philosophy, and Linguistics.
Abraham Robinson
Mathematics and Philosophy faculty, 1962–67
Yiannis Moschovakis
Mathematics faculty from 1964; now emeritus
Alonzo Church
Philosophy and Mathematics faculty, 1967–90
Hans Kamp
Ph.D. 1968
Nino Cocchiarella
Ph.D. 1966
David Kaplan
B.A. 1956; Ph.D. 1964; Philosophy faculty from 1964; now emeritus
Barbara Partee
Linguistics faculty, 1965–72
Herbert Enderton
Mathematics faculty, 1968–2003
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A cohesive Los Angeles school of set theory emerged around descriptive set theory, determinacy, large cardinals, and their mathematical and foundational consequences. UCLA’s connections with Caltech, together with the arrival of Tony Martin and John Steel and the training of a remarkable generation of students, made the region an international center of the subject.
Alexander Kechris
Ph.D. 1972
Saharon Shelah
Mathematics faculty, 1970–71
Tony Martin
Mathematics faculty from 1977; joint Philosophy appointment from 1992; now emeritus
John Steel
Mathematics faculty, 1977–96
Edward Keenan
Linguistics faculty from 1974; now emeritus
Lefteris Kirousis
Ph.D. 1978
Phokion Kolaitis
Ph.D. 1978
Howard Becker
Ph.D. 1979
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The Los Angeles school deepened its worldwide reputation through major advances in descriptive set theory and set theory, a strong flow of students and visitors, and the 1988 Karp Prize awarded jointly to Tony Martin, John Steel, and Hugh Woodin. Its members also opened new directions linking logic with theoretical computer science, analysis, and other areas of mathematics.
Chris Freiling
Ph.D. 1981
Matthew Foreman
Visiting faculty, 1981–82
Steve Jackson
Ph.D. 1983
Michel de Rougemont
Ph.D. 1983
Larry Moss
Ph.D. 1984
Yo Matsubara
Ph.D. 1985
Greg McColm
Ph.D. 1986
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Logic at UCLA broadened and renewed its ties across departments. Work in descriptive set theory, inner model theory, philosophy of mathematics, philosophical logic, and formal semantics flourished; Greg Hjorth and Alexander Kechris received the 2004 Karp Prize. The UCLA Logic Center was founded that year to support research, students, visitors, and scientific meetings across this growing community.
Greg Hjorth
Mathematics faculty, 1995–2011
Itay Neeman
Ph.D. 1996; Mathematics faculty from 2000
Terry Parsons
Philosophy and Linguistics faculty, 2000–12
Marcus Kracht
Linguistics faculty, 2002–08
Philippe Schlenker
Linguistics faculty, 2002–07
Asger Törnquist
Ph.D. 2005
Benjamin Miller
Logic Center Fellow, 2004–07
Alex Usvyatsov
Logic Center Fellow, 2005–08
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Faculty, students, and visiting researchers sustained exceptional breadth across set theory, model theory, computability, proof theory, descriptive set theory, topological dynamics, operator algebras, and combinatorics. The Logic Center helped make UCLA both a training ground for emerging researchers and a crossroads for several active areas of contemporary logic.
Matthias Aschenbrenner
Mathematics faculty, 2007–20
Dima Sinapova
Ph.D. 2008
Grigor Sargsyan
Visiting faculty, 2009–11
Henry Towsner
Visiting faculty, 2009–11
Isaac Goldbring
Visiting faculty, 2009–12
Clinton Conley
Ph.D. 2009
Anush Tserunyan
Ph.D. 2013
Aleksandra Kwiatkowska
Visiting faculty, 2012–15
Spencer Unger
Visiting faculty, 2013–17
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In recent years, research in logic at UCLA has built on established strengths while opening new directions. The program has continued to earn international recognition, notably when Matthias Aschenbrenner shared the 2018 Karp Prize and Itay Neeman won the 2019 Hausdorff Medal. An active seminar and colloquium, a wide network of former students and visitors, and a new generation of faculty keep UCLA’s logic program vibrant and at the forefront of the field.
James Freitag
Visiting faculty, 2015–16
Sean Walsh
Philosophy faculty from 2017
Andrew Marks
Mathematics faculty, 2015–23
Artem Chernikov
Mathematics faculty, 2015–24
Nicholas Ramsey
Visiting faculty, 2018–22
Tyler Arant
Ph.D. 2019; Visiting faculty from 2019
Kyle Gannon
Visiting faculty, 2020–23
Patrick Lutz
Visiting faculty, 2021–23
Anton Bernshteyn
Mathematics faculty from 2024
The Montague Room
Located in Mathematical Sciences 7332, the Richard Montague Room was for many years the office of the Reviews Section of the Association for Symbolic Logic. It is now a small lounge and reading room for faculty affiliated with the UCLA Logic Center, visitors, and advanced logic graduate students.
The room has a computer and an ethernet connection, as well as a small but very useful collection of logic books inherited from the Reviews Office. For information about using the Montague Room, contact Anton Bernshteyn.
Greg Hjorth’s Webpage
Visit an archived copy of Greg Hjorth’s webpage.