Maurice Nivat

Maurice Paul Nivat (born December 21, 1937) is a French computer scientist. His research spans the areas of formal languages, programming language semantics and discrete geometry. A 2006 citation for an honorary doctorate called Nivat one of the fathers of theoretical computer science.^[1] He was a Professor at the University Paris Diderot until 2001.

Early life and education

Nivat was born in Clermont-Ferrand, France. His parents were high-school teachers; his father taught languages while his mother taught mathematics.^[2] In 1954, Nivat moved with his family to Paris.^[2] Nivat was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure in 1956, but began working at the Blaise Pascal Institute of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, a newly established computing laboratory, in 1959.^[1][2] He returned to study mathematics in 1961 under the supervision of Marcel-Paul Schützenberger.^[1] His 1967 thesis was entitled Transductions des langages de Chomsky" ("Transductions of Chomsky Languages").

Career

In 1969, Nivat became a professor at Universite Paris VII and taught until 2002.^[3] He is currently a professor emeritus.

Nivat was involved in many endeavours in theoretical computer science in Europe: he was one of the founders of the EATCS in 1972 and organized the first ICALP conference in the same year at INRIA (then called IRIA) in Paris. In 1975, he was a founder of the journal Theoretical Computer Science. He was editor-in-chief of the journal for over 25 years.^[1]

Awards

Since 1983, Nivat has been a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences.^[2] Nivat is also an officer of both the Legion d'honneur and the Ordre national du Mérite, a commander of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques in France. Nivat won the EATCS award in 2002. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Bologna in 1997^[4] and the University of Quebec at Montreal in 2006.^[1]

References