David Harel

David Harel is a renowned Israeli computer scientist and mathematician who has made significant contributions to the field of computer science, particularly in the areas of software engineering, systems biology, and computational complexity theory. He is known for his work on statecharts, a visual formalism used for modeling and specifying complex software systems, which has been widely adopted in the software industry. Harel's research has been influenced by the works of Alan Turing, John von Neumann, and Marvin Minsky, and he has collaborated with prominent researchers such as Amir Pnueli and Nissan Levy.

● Biography

David Harel was born in London, United Kingdom in 1950 and immigrated to Israel with his family at a young age. He grew up in Tel Aviv and developed an interest in mathematics and computer science during his high school years, inspired by the works of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Emmy Noether. Harel pursued his academic career at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he earned his Bachelor's degree in mathematics and computer science and later his Ph.D. in computer science under the supervision of Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv. During his graduate studies, Harel was exposed to the works of Donald Knuth, Edsger W. Dijkstra, and Robert Tarjan, which had a significant impact on his research interests.

● Career

Harel's academic career spans over four decades, during which he has held various positions at the Weizmann Institute of Science, including Professor of Computer Science and Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. He has also held visiting positions at prominent institutions such as Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of California, Berkeley, where he has collaborated with researchers such as Don Knuth, Robert Sedgewick, and Richard Karp. Harel's research has been supported by funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation, European Research Council, and Israel Science Foundation, and he has served on the editorial boards of prestigious journals such as Journal of the ACM, SIAM Journal on Computing, and IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering.

● Research

Harel's research focuses on the development of formal methods and visual formalisms for modeling and specifying complex software systems, with applications in systems biology, artificial intelligence, and human-computer interaction. His work on statecharts has been widely adopted in the software industry and has been used in the development of complex systems such as air traffic control systems, medical devices, and autonomous vehicles. Harel has also made significant contributions to the field of computational complexity theory, particularly in the areas of NP-completeness and approximation algorithms, and has collaborated with researchers such as Michael Rabin, Dana Scott, and Leslie Valiant.

● Awards_and_Honors

Harel has received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to computer science, including the Israel Prize in Computer Science, the EMET Prize in Exact Sciences, and the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. He is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has been elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Academia Europaea. Harel has also received honorary degrees from institutions such as University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, and Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

● Publications

Harel has published numerous papers and books on computer science and mathematics, including the widely used textbook Computers Ltd: What They Really Can't Do, which has been translated into several languages. His research has been published in top-tier conferences and journals such as STOC, FOCS, SODA, Journal of the ACM, and SIAM Journal on Computing. Harel has also edited several volumes, including the Handbook of Formal Methods in Software Engineering and the Lecture Notes in Computer Science series, and has served as a program committee chair for conferences such as POPL and ICSE. His work has been cited by thousands of researchers, including Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf, and Jon Postel. Category:Computer scientists