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 ...
in
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 ...
at
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 ...
of
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
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 ...
of
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- ...
(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 ...
at
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
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 ...
, 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
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 ...
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 ‘
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 ...
’, 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
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 ...
Short biographyat 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 ...
Radhia Cousot awardat 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 ...
Disparition de Radhia Cousotat th
Institut des sciences de l’information et de leurs interactionsof 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