Eike Best (born 13 March 1951) is a German computer scientist, best known for his contributions to

concurrency theory In computer science, concurrency is the ability of different parts or units of a program, algorithm, or problem to be executed out-of-order or in partial order, without affecting the outcome. This allows for parallel execution of the concur ...

Early life and education

Eike Best was born in

Neustadt an der Weinstraße Neustadt an der Weinstraße (, formerly known as ; lb, Neustadt op der Wäistrooss ; pfl, Naischdadt) is a town in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With 53,300 inhabitants , it is the largest town called ''Neustadt''. Geography Location T ...

. During his childhood, he lived in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

, Germany, and

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

, where his father worked as high school teacher. Best received a high school diploma from th
German School of Istanbul
in 1969, a Diploma in Computer Science from the

Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT; german: Karlsruher Institut für Technologie) is a public research university in Karlsruhe, Germany. The institute is a national research center of the Helmholtz Association. KIT was created in 2009 w ...

in 1974, and a PhD from

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public university, public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is ...

in 1981 for a dissertation on semantics, verification, and design of concurrent programs, supervised by Peter Lauer and

Brian Randell Brian Randell (born 1936) is a British computer scientist, and Emeritus Professor at the School of Computing, Newcastle University, United Kingdom. He specialises in research into software fault tolerance and dependability, and is a noted auth ...

. He habilitated in 1988 at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine U ...

with a thesis on causal semantics of non-sequential programs.

Career and contributions

Best was research assistant in

Carl Adam Petri Carl Adam Petri (12 July 1926 in Leipzig – 2 July 2010 in Siegburg) was a German mathematician and computer scientist. Life and work Petri created his major scientific contribution, the concept of the Petri net, in 1939 at the age of 13, for ...

's research group at the

Gesellschaft für Mathematik und Datenverarbeitung The Fraunhofer Society (german: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., lit=Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research) is a German research organization with 76institutes spread throughout Germany ...

near Bonn (1981–1988), and professor in the Computer Science departments at the

University of Hildesheim The University of Hildesheim (in German ''Universität Hildesheim'') is a public university located in Hildesheim. History Alfeld University of Education (Pädagogische Hochschule Alfeld) - University of Hildesheim The University of Hildeshe ...

(1989–1996) and the

Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg The Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (german: Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg) is a university located in Oldenburg (city), Oldenburg, Germany. It is one of the most important and highly regarded educational facilities in no ...

(1996–2018), where he headed the Group for Parallel Systems. During his Bonn period he developed Petri's theory of non-sequential processes together with César Fernández, and contributed to the theory of free-choice Petri nets. During his Hildesheim and Oldenburg periods he developed the Petri Box Calculus, a

process algebra In computer science, the process calculi (or process algebras) are a diverse family of related approaches for formally modelling concurrent systems. Process calculi provide a tool for the high-level description of interactions, communications, and ...

with a Petri net semantics, together with Raymond Devillers and Maciej Koutny. During the last years of his career in Oldenburg he worked on the automatic synthesis of Petri nets from transition systems. In the 1990s, Best was one of the founders of CONCUR, the

International Conference on Concurrency Theory The International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR) is an academic conference in the field of computer science, with focus on the theory of concurrency and its applications. It is the flagship conference for concurrency theory according ...

, together with Jos Baeten, Kim Larsen, Ugo Montanari, and

Pierre Wolper Pierre Wolper is a Belgian computer scientist at the University of Liège. His research interests include verification methods for reactive and concurrent programs, as well as temporal databases. He is the co-recipient of the 2000 Gödel Prize, al ...

. Moreover, Best was coordinator of the DEMON and CALIBAN projects, funded by the European Community. He acted as dean of the Computer Science Faculty from 2000 to 2002 and became director of the Computer Science Department at University of Oldenburg in 2009.

Selected publications

Eike Best is the author and co-author of multiple books in computer science, including: * * *

References

External links

Personal home page

Google Scholar profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Best, Eike Living people 1951 births People from Neustadt an der Weinstraße Alumni of Newcastle University Academic staff of the University of Oldenburg German computer scientists Formal methods people