Nissim Francez (Hebrew: נסים פרנסיז; born: 19 January 1944) is an Israeli professor,
emeritus in the
computer science
Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...
faculty at the
Technion, and former head of
computational linguistics laboratory in the faculty.
Early life and education
Nissim Francez was born in
Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...
. His family emigrated to Israel in 1949. He received his
B.Sc. in
mathematics and
philosophy from the
Hebrew University
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
,
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
in 1965. After his military service in the
IDF, he studied at the Department of
Applied Mathematics
Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemati ...
at the
Weizmann Institute,
Rehovot, and received his
M.sc. in 1971.
He continued his studies there and received his
Ph.D.
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...
degree in 1976. Francez under the supervision of Prof.
Amir Pnueli.
Career
Francez was a research associate at
Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1976. A year later he joined the Computer Science Department of the
University of Southern California
, mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it"
, religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist
, established =
, accreditation = WSCUC
, type = Private research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $8.1 ...
(USC), as an assistant professor.
In 1978 He returned to Israel as a lecturer in the Computer Science Department in the Technion,
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
. A year later he was promoted to senior lecturer, and in 1984 to associate professor. In 1991 he became a full professor at the Computer Science Faculty in the Technion, and in 1996-2006 he was the head of the Computational Linguistics Laboratory at the faculty.
Francez held the
Bank Leumi chair in Computer Science in the faculty from 2000 until 2010, when he retired from the Technion as professor emeritus.
[
In his sabbaticals and summer leaves, Francez has been a research associate at Aiken Computation Lab. at ]Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
in the summers of 1981 and 1982. He was also a visiting scientist at Abo Academy, Turku, Finland (1988) and at the Department of Computer Science, University of Utrecht
Utrecht University (UU; nl, Universiteit Utrecht, formerly ''Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht'') is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established , it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands. In 2018, it had an enrollme ...
, The Netherlands (1992). Francez was an Honorary Visiting Professor at the Department of CS, Manchester University
, mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity
, established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
(1996-1997), and a Senior Academic Visitor at HCRC, Department of Informatics, Edinburgh University
The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted ...
(2002)
and at the School of Computer Science, St Andrews University
(Aien aristeuein)
, motto_lang = grc
, mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best
, established =
, type = Public research university
Ancient university
, endowment ...
(2007).[
]
Professional work
Francez was working in IBM Scientific Center, Haifa in 1981 to 1982, and a year later at IBM-T.J.Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York
Yorktown Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yorktown in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2010 census.
History
Yorktown Heights is in the town of Yorktown, New York, in northern ...
, United States as a visiting scientist.
In 1983-85 he was working on design and implementation of a Prolog
Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics.
Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily ...
programming environment at IBM Scientific Center, Haifa.
He was a visiting scientist at Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation
Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation, originally the Microelectronics and Computer Consortium and widely seen as the acronym MCC, was the first, and at one time one of the largest, computer industry research and development co ...
(MCC), Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
, US in the summers of 1986 and 1987 and 1989-1990
In 1997 he was a visiting scientist at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica
The (abbr. CWI; English: "National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science") is a research centre in the field of mathematics and theoretical computer science. It is part of the institutes organization of the Dutch Research Co ...
(CWI), Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...
.[
]
Research
Francez's current research focuses on proof-theoretic semantics
Proof-theoretic semantics is an approach to the semantics of logic that attempts to locate the meaning of propositions and logical connectives not in terms of interpretations, as in Tarskian approaches to semantics, but in the role that the propo ...
for logic and natural language.
He has also carried out work in formal semantics of natural language, type-logical grammar, computational linguistics, unification-based grammar formalisms (LFG, HPSG). In the past he was interested in semantics of programming languages, program verification
In the context of hardware and software systems, formal verification is the act of proving or disproving the correctness of intended algorithms underlying a system with respect to a certain formal specification or property, using formal metho ...
, concurrent
Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to:
Law
* Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea''
* Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...
and distributed programming
A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...
and logic programming
Logic programming is a programming paradigm which is largely based on formal logic. Any program written in a logic programming language is a set of sentences in logical form, expressing facts and rules about some problem domain. Major logic pro ...
.
Membership in professional societies
Francez was a member of the following associations: Association for Computing Machinery (SIGPLAN
SIGPLAN is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on programming languages.
Conferences
* Principles of Programming Languages (POPL)
* Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI)
* International Symposium on ...
), IEEE Computer Society
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...
, Association for Computational Linguistics
The Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) is a scientific and professional organization for people working on natural language processing. Its namesake conference is one of the primary high impact conferences for natural language proces ...
(ACL), Association for Logic Programming
The Association for Logic Programming (ALP) was founded in 1986. Its mission is "to contribute to the development of Logic Programming, relate it to other formal and also to humanistic sciences, and to promote its uses in academia and industry al ...
, International association for Logic, Language and Information (FoLLI), European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS), Israeli association for theoretical linguistics (IATL).[
He was also a Guest Editor (with Ian Pratt-Hartmann) of a special issue of ]Studia Logica
''Studia Logica'' (full name: Studia Logica, An International Journal for Symbolic Logic), is a scienific journal publishing papers employing formal tools from Mathematics and Logic. The scope of papers published in Studia Logica covers all scient ...
Logic and Natural Language, 2012.
Selected Bibliography
Books
*
*
*
*
*
Articles
*
*
*
*
*
External links
Nissim Francez
Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes ...
*
Nissim Francez
at DBLP
DBLP is a computer science bibliography website. Starting in 1993 at Universität Trier in Germany, it grew from a small collection of HTML files and became an organization hosting a database and logic programming bibliography site. Since Novem ...
Bibliography Server
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Francez, Nissim
Bulgarian emigrants to Israel
Israeli Jews
Bulgarian Jews in Israel
Theoretical computer scientists
1944 births
Israeli people of Bulgarian-Jewish descent
Israeli computer scientists
Living people
Academic staff of Technion – Israel Institute of Technology