Francisco Javier Esparza Estaun (born 27 April 1964 in

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

, Spain) is a Spanish computer scientist. He is a professor at the

Technische Universität München The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

Education

Javier Esparza Estaun received his Master of Science degree in

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

from the

University of Zaragoza The University of Zaragoza, sometimes referred to as Saragossa University () is a public university with teaching campuses and research centres spread over the three provinces of Aragon, Spain. Founded in 1542, it is one of the oldest universiti ...

(1987). He earned his Doctoral degree (PhD) in Computer Science (1990, on free-choice Petri nets) from the same university. He habilitated 1994 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 ...

on the subject of Petri net unfoldings.

Career

During his habilitation and in the period afterwards, Javier Esparza's focus was on

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 ...

and the theory of Petri nets. He made important contributions to Petri net structure theory and to the unfolding approach, initially proposed by Kenneth L. McMillan, and he is the co-author of two books on these subjects. After his habilitation, he was employed as an associate professor at Technische Universität München (1994–2001). He was then successively Chair of Theoretical Computer Science at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

(2001–2003) and Chair of Software Reliability and Security at the

Universität Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wit ...

(2003–2007). Since 2007, he holds the chair for Foundations of Software Reliability and Theoretical Computer Science, again at Technische Universität München. He has also made contributions to the automata-theoretic approach to software model checking, to

program analysis In computer science, program analysis is the process of automatically analyzing the behavior of computer programs regarding a property such as correctness, robustness, safety and liveness. Program analysis focuses on two major areas: program op ...

, and to the verification of infinite-state systems. More recently, his work has focused on the verification of parametrised and stochastic systems. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the aforementioned fields, as well as lecture notes on an algorithmic approach to automata theory. Multiple software verification tools have been developed by his group, such as Moped and jMoped, Rabinizer, Strix, and Peregrine. He received an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council in 2018 and has been Principal Investigator of more than 20 research projects, most of them collaborative in an international context. He has frequently been invited as a speaker at Computer Science conferences and has served as a Chair or a member of various professional Program, Steering and Selection Committees.

Awards and honours

Javier Esparza has been awarded an honorary doctorate in Informatics from the

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) ( cs, Masarykova univerzita; la, Universitas Masarykiana Brunensis) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno as the se ...

of Brno, Czech Republic, in 2009, and he is an elected member of

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

since 2011. He received the

CONCUR In Western jurisprudence, concurrence (also contemporaneity or simultaneity) is the apparent need to prove the simultaneous occurrence of both ("guilty action") and ("guilty mind"), to constitute a crime; except in crimes of strict liability ...

''Test-of Time Award'' 2021 for his paper ''Reachability Analysis of Pushdown Automata: Application to Model-checking'' (co-authored with Ahmed Bouajjani and Oded Maler); several best paper awards at conferences; multiple times a ''Best Teaching'' prize at the Technische Universität München; and a ''Dissertation Prize'' of Universidad de Zaragoza (1990).

References

External links

Official page of Javier Esparza at the Technische Universität München (Lehrstuhl 7 / Theoretische Informatik)

Javier Esparza on Google Scholar
an

Javier Esparza in the Mathematics Genealogy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esparza, Javier Living people 1964 births People from Pamplona University of Zaragoza alumni Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich Members of Academia Europaea Spanish computer scientists Formal methods people