Gerard J. Holzmann (born 1951) is a Dutch-American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

and researcher at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

and

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

, best known as the developer of the SPIN model checker.

Early life and education

Holzmann was born in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

and received an

Engineer's degree An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Asia and Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always require ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

Delft University of Technology The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public university, public Institute of technology, technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, a ...

in 1976. He subsequently also received his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

degree from

Delft University The Delft University of Technology (TU Delft; ) is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. It specializes in engineering, technology, computing, design, and natural sciences. It is considered one ...

in 1979 under Willem van der Poel and J.L. de Kroes with a thesis entitled ''Coordination problems in multiprocessing systems''. After receiving a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people ...

he was a post-graduate student at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

for another year, where he worked with

Per Brinch Hansen Per Brinch Hansen (13 November 1938 – 31 July 2007) was a Denmark, Danish-United States, American computer scientist known for his work in operating systems, Concurrent computing, concurrent Computer programming, programming and Parallel comput ...

Career

In 1980 he started at

in Murray Hill for a year. Back in the Netherlands he was assistant professor at the Delft University of Technology for two years.Holzmann, Gerard J. "The Pandora System: an interactive system for the design of data communication protocols." ''Computer Networks'' (1976) 8.2 (1984): 71-79. In 1983 he returned to

where he worked in the Computing Science Research Center (the former

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

research group). In 2003 he joined

, where he leads the NASA JPL ''Laboratory for Reliable Software'' in Pasadena,

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

and is a JPL fellow. In 1981 Holzmann was awarded the Prof. Bahler Prize by the Royal Dutch Institute of Engineers. In 2001, he was selected for the Software System Award (for SPIN) by the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

(ACM). In 2002, he was selected for the ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award. He was selected for the Paris Kanellakis Theory and Practice Award in 2005. He was elected a member of the US

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 2005 for the creation of model-checking systems for software verification. In 2011 he was inducted as a Fellow of the

. He was awarded the

NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal The NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal (abbreviated EEAM) was established by NASA in 1981 to recognize unusually significant engineering contributions towards achievement of aeronautical or space exploration goals. This award is given ...

in October 2012. In 2015 he was awarded th
IEEE Harlan D. Mills Award

Work

Holzmann is known for the development of the SPIN model checker (SPIN is short for ''Simple Promela Interpreter'') in the 1980s at Bell Labs. This device can verify the correctness of concurrent software, since 1991 freely available.

Books

Publications, a selection: *
The Spin Model Checker — Primer and Reference Manual
',

Addison-Wesley Addison–Wesley is an American publisher of textbooks and computer literature. It is an imprint of Pearson plc, a global publishing and education company. In addition to publishing books, Addison–Wesley also distributes its technical titles ...

, 2003. . *
Design and Validation of Computer Protocols
',

Prentice Hall Prentice Hall was a major American publishing#Textbook_publishing, educational publisher. It published print and digital content for the 6–12 and higher-education market. It was an independent company throughout the bulk of the twentieth cen ...

, 1991. *
The Early History of Data Networks
',

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office i ...

Press, 1995. *
Beyond Photography — The Digital Darkroom
',

, 1988. .

References

External links