Radhia Cousot (6 August 1947 – 1 May 2014) was a Tunisian French computer scientist known for inventing

abstract interpretation In computer science, abstract interpretation is a theory of sound approximation of the semantics of computer programs, based on monotonic functions over ordered sets, especially lattices. It can be viewed as a partial execution of a computer prog ...

Studies

Radhia Cousot was born on 6 August 1947, in

Sakiet Sidi Youssef Sakiet Sidi Youssef ( aeb, ساقية سيدي يوسف) is a town and commune in the Kef Governorate, Tunisia, near the border with Algeria. As of 2014, it had a population of 6,335. History In Roman times, the town was known as Naraggara. Roma ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

, where she survived the massacre of the children in her school on February 8, 1958. She then went to the Lycée de jeunes filles at

Sousse Sousse or Soussa ( ar, سوسة, ; Berber:''Susa'') is a city in Tunisia, capital of the Sousse Governorate. Located south of the capital Tunis, the city has 271,428 inhabitants (2014). Sousse is in the central-east of the country, on the Gulf ...

, the

Lycée français The Agency for French Education Abroad, or Agency for French Teaching Abroad, (french: Agence pour l'enseignement français à l'étranger; abbreviation: AEFE), is a national public agency under the administration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ...

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...

and then the Polytechnic School of Algiers (where she was ranked 1st and the only woman). She specialized in

mathematical optimization Mathematical optimization (alternatively spelled ''optimisation'') or mathematical programming is the selection of a best element, with regard to some criterion, from some set of available alternatives. It is generally divided into two subfi ...

and integer

linear programming Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear function#As a polynomial function, li ...

. Supported by a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

br>fellowship
(1972–1975), she obtained a master's degree in

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 Applied science, practical discipli ...

( Diplôme d'études approfondies (DEA)) at the

Joseph Fourier University Joseph Fourier University (UJF, french: Université Joseph Fourier, also known as Grenoble I) was a French university situated in the city of Grenoble and focused on the fields of sciences, technologies and health. It is now part of the Universit ...

Grenoble lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

in 1972. She obtained her Doctorate ès Sciences/State Doctorate in

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

in Nancy in 1985 under the supervision of .In the 1980s, there existed in France two levels of PhDs, the higher one, the Doctorate ès Sciences/State Doctorate being necessary to access

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

ships. It has since been replaced by the

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

Career

Radhia Cousot was appointed Associate research scientist at the IMAG laboratory of the

(1975–1979) and, from 1980 on, at the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science Basic research, also called pure research o ...

, as junior research scientist, research scientist, senior research scientist, and senior research scientist emerita at the Computer Science laboratories of the

Henri Poincaré University The Henri Poincaré University, or Nancy 1, nicknamed UHP, was a public research university located in Nancy, France. UHP was merged into University of Lorraine in 2012, and was previously a member of the Nancy-Université federation, belongin ...

of Nancy (1980–1983), the

University of Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (French: ''Université Paris-Sud''), also known as University of Paris — XI (or as Université d'Orsay before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, in ...

Orsay Orsay () is a Communes of France, commune in the Essonne Departments of France, department in Île-de-France in northern France. It is located in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, France, from the Kilometre Zero, centre of Paris. A fortifie ...

(1984–1988), the

École Polytechnique École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(1989–2008) where from 1991 she headed the research team “Semantics, Proof and Abstract interpretation”, and the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(2006–2014).

Scientific achievements

Together with her husband

Patrick Patrick may refer to: * Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name * Patrick (surname), list of people with this name People * Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint *Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...

, Radhia Cousot is the originator of

, an influential technique in

formal methods In computer science, formal methods are mathematically rigorous techniques for the specification, development, and verification of software and hardware systems. The use of formal methods for software and hardware design is motivated by the expec ...

Abstract interpretation In computer science, abstract interpretation is a theory of sound approximation of the semantics of computer programs, based on monotonic functions over ordered sets, especially lattices. It can be viewed as a partial execution of a computer prog ...

is based on three main ideas. # Any reasoning/proof/static analysis on a computer system refers to a semantics describing, at some level of abstraction, its possible executions. # The reasoning/proof/static analysis should abstract away all semantic properties irrelevant to the reasoning. # Because of undecidability, sound, fully automated, and always terminating reasonings on/proofs/static analysis of computer systems must perform

mathematical induction Mathematical induction is a method for proving that a statement ''P''(''n'') is true for every natural number ''n'', that is, that the infinitely many cases ''P''(0), ''P''(1), ''P''(2), ''P''(3), ... all hold. Informal metaphors help ...

s in the abstract and so, can only be approximate (even with finiteness and decidability hypothesis, because of

combinatorial explosion In mathematics, a combinatorial explosion is the rapid growth of the complexity of a problem due to how the combinatorics of the problem is affected by the input, constraints, and bounds of the problem. Combinatorial explosion is sometimes used ...

beyond tiny systems). In her thesis, Radhia Cousot advanced the semantics, proof, and static analysis methods for

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

parallel Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Computing * Parallel algorithm * Parallel computing * Parallel metaheuristic * Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel * Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of IBM ...

programs. Radhia Cousot is at the origin of the contacts with

Airbus Airbus SE (; ; ; ) is a European Multinational corporation, multinational aerospace corporation. Airbus designs, manufactures and sells civil and military aerospace manufacturer, aerospace products worldwide and manufactures aircraft througho ...

in January 1999 that led to the development of Astrée run-time error analyzer from 2001 onwards, a tool for sound

static program analysis In computer science, static program analysis (or static analysis) is the analysis of computer programs performed without executing them, in contrast with dynamic program analysis, which is performed on programs during their execution. The term i ...

of embedded control/command

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

developed at the

and now distributed by AbsInt GmbH, a German software company specialized on static analysis. Astrée is used in the

transport Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...

ation,

space Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider ...

, and

medical Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...

software industries.

Awards

With

Patrick Cousot Patrick Cousot (born 3 December 1948) is a French computer scientist, currently Silver Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University, USA. Before he was Professor at the École Normale Supéri ...

, she received the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award in 2013 and the

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 operati ...

Harlan D. Mills award in 2014 for “the invention of ‘

’, development of tool support, and its practical application”.

Radhia Cousot best young researcher paper award

Since September 2014, the ''Radhia Cousot best young researcher paper award'' is attributed annually by the program chair on behalf of the program committee of the ''Static Analysis Symposia'' (SAS). * 2014 (

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

): Aleksandar Chakarov (University of Colorado, Boulder, CO, USA), ''Expectation invariants for probabilistic program loops as fixed points'' (with Sriram Sankaranarayanan), M. Müller-Olm & H. Seidl (Eds.)
SAS 2014 LNCS 8723
pp. 85–100, Springer * 2015 (

Saint Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, on the English Channel coast. The walled city had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth from local extortion and overseas adventures. In 1944, the Alli ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

): Marianna Rapoport (University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), ''Precise Data Flow Analysis in the Presence of Correlated Method Calls'', (with Ondrej Lhoták and Frank Tip), S. Blazy & T. Jensen (Eds.)
SAS 2015LNCS 9291
pp. 54–71, Springer * 2016 (

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

): Stefan Schulze Frielinghaus (Technische Universität München, Germany), ''Enforcing Termination of Interprocedural Analysis'', (with Helmut Seidl and Ralf Vogler), Xavier Rival (Ed.)
SAS 2016LNCS 9837
pp. 447–468, Springer * 2017 (

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

, NY, USA): Suvam Mukherjee (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India) and Oded Padon (Tel Aviv University, Israel), ''Thread-Local Semantics and its Efficient Sequential Abstractions for Race-Free Programs'', (with Sharon Shoham, Deepak D'Souza, and Noam Rinetzky), Francesco Ranzato (Ed.)
SAS 2017LNCS 10422
pp 253–276, Springer

Notes

References

External links

at the

Short biography

at the

Radhia Cousot award
at the

Disparition de Radhia Cousot
at th
Institut des sciences de l’information et de leurs interactions
of the

CNRS The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,637 ...

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cousot, Radhia 1947 births 2014 deaths 2014 in science French women computer scientists Tunisian women computer scientists Formal methods people Programming language researchers Software engineering researchers Nancy-Université alumni 20th-century French women scientists 20th-century Tunisian women scientists