Gaston H. Gonnet is a
Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
an
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
computer scientist
A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science.
Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (a ...
and entrepreneur.
He is best known for his contributions to the
Maple computer algebra system
Maple is a symbolic and numeric computing environment as well as a multi-paradigm programming language. It covers several areas of technical computing, such as symbolic mathematics, numerical analysis, data processing, visualization, and other ...
and the creation of a digital version of the
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
.
Education and early life
Gonnet received his doctorate in computer science from the
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...
in 1977. His thesis was entitled ''Interpolation and Interpolation-Hash Searching''. His advisor was
J. Alan George.
Career and research
In 1980 Gonnet co-founded the Symbolic Computation Group at the University of Waterloo.
The work of SCG on a general-purpose
computer algebra system
A computer algebra system (CAS) or symbolic algebra system (SAS) is any mathematical software with the ability to manipulate mathematical expressions in a way similar to the traditional manual computations of mathematicians and scientists. The ...
later formed the core of the
Maple
''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since h ...
system. In 1988, Gonnet co-founded (with
Keith Geddes
Keith Oliver Geddes (born 1947) is a professor emeritus in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science within the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics, Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. He i ...
) the private company
Waterloo Maple
Waterloo Maple Inc. is a Canadian software company, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario. It operates under the trade name Maplesoft. It is best known as the manufacturer of the Maple computer algebra system, and MapleSim physical modeling and ...
Inc., to sell Maple commercially.
In the mid 1990s the company ran into trouble and a disagreement between his colleagues caused him to withdraw from chairman of the Board and managerial involvement.
In 1984 Gonnet co-founded the New Oxford English Dictionary project at UW, which sought to create a searchable electronic version of the
Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a c ...
. The project was selected by the
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
as a partner for the computerisation leading to the publication of the second edition of the OED. The UW project's main contributions were in the parsing of the source text to enhance the tagging and on building a full text searching system based on PAT trees (a version of
suffix array
In computer science, a suffix array is a sorted array of all suffixes of a string. It is a data structure used in, among others, full-text indices, data-compression algorithms, and the field of bibliometrics.
Suffix arrays were introduced by a ...
). This project later culminated in another successful commercial venture, the
Open Text Corporation
OpenText Corporation (also written ''opentext'') is a Canadian company that develops and sells enterprise information management (EIM) software.
OpenText, headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is Canada's fourth-largest software company ...
. Gonnet was founder and chairman of the Board of OTC until 1994.
Gonnet is a computer science professor at
ETH Zurich
(colloquially)
, former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule
, image = ETHZ.JPG
, image_size =
, established =
, type = Public
, budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021)
, rector = Günther Dissertori
, president = Joël Mesot
, a ...
in
Zurich,
Switzerland
). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...
. In 1991, he began developing the
Darwin programming language for biosciences, which would become the basis for
OMA,
a package and database for gene orthology prediction. He is chief scientist of two Canadian startups: CeeqIT and Porfiau.
Awards and honours
On June 9, 2011, Gonnet and Keith O. Geddes received the
ACM Richard D. Jenks Memorial Prize for Excellence in Software Engineering Applied to Computer Algebra for the Maple Project.
On March 14, 2013 Gonnet was awarded a Dr. Honoris Causa by the
Universidad de la República, engineering faculty from Uruguay.
See also
*
List of University of Waterloo people
The University of Waterloo, located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, is a comprehensive public university that was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles. It has grown into an institution of more than 42,000 students, faculty, and ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gonnet, Gaston
Living people
Scientific computing researchers
Swiss computer scientists
University of Waterloo alumni
Uruguayan computer scientists
Uruguayan expatriates in Canada
Uruguayan expatriates in Switzerland
Uruguayan people of French descent
Place of birth missing (living people)
1948 births