David Harel (; born 12 April 1950) is a computer scientist, currently serving as President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He has been on the faculty of the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( ''Machon Weizmann LeMada'') is a Public university, public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, fourteen years before the State of Israel was founded. Unlike other List of Israeli uni ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

since 1980, and holds the William Sussman Professorial Chair of Mathematics. Born in London, England, he was Dean of the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the institute for seven years.

Biography

Harel is best known for his work on dynamic logic,

computability Computability is the ability to solve a problem by an effective procedure. It is a key topic of the field of computability theory within mathematical logic and the theory of computation within computer science. The computability of a problem is c ...

database theory Database theory encapsulates a broad range of topics related to the study and research of the theoretical realm of databases and database management systems. Theoretical aspects of data management include, among other areas, the foundations of q ...

software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

and modelling biological systems. In the 1980s he invented the graphical language of Statecharts for specifying and programming reactive systems, which has been adopted as part of the UML standard. Since the late 1990s he has concentrated on a scenario-based approach to programming such systems, launched by his co-invention (with W. Damm) of Live Sequence Charts. He has published expository accounts of computer science, such as his award-winning 1987 book "Algorithmics: The Spirit of Computing" and his 2000 book "Computers Ltd.: What They ''Really'' Can’t do", and has presented series on computer science for Israeli radio and television. He has also worked on other diverse topics, such as graph layout,

computer science education Computer science education or computing education is the field of teacher, teaching and learning the discipline of computer science, and computational thinking. The field of computer science education encompasses a wide range of topics, from b ...

, biological modeling and the analysis and communication of odors. Harel completed his PhD at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

between 1976 and 1978. In 1987, he co-founded the software company I-Logix, which in 2006 became part of IBM. He has advocated building a full computer model of the

Caenorhabditis elegans ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' () is a free-living transparent nematode about 1 mm in length that lives in temperate soil environments. It is the type species of its genus. The name is a Hybrid word, blend of the Greek ''caeno-'' (recent), ''r ...

nematode, which was the first multicellular organism to have its genome completely sequenced. The eventual completeness of such a model depends on his updated version of the

Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949,. Turing wrote about the ‘imitation game’ centrally and extensively throughout his 1950 text, but apparently retired the term thereafter. He referred to ‘ iste ...

. He is a fellow of the ACM, the

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 ...

, the AAAS, and the EATCS, and a member of several international academies. Harel is active in a number of peace and human rights organizations in Israel.

Awards and honors

* 1986

Stevens Award The Stevens Award is a software engineering lecture award given by the Reengineering Forum, an industry association. The international Stevens Award was created to recognize outstanding contributions to the literature or practice of methods for s ...

for Software Development Methods * 1992 ACM Karlstrom Outstanding Educator AwardDavid Harel – Award Winner
ACM. Retrieved 2 January 2015. * 1994

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

* 1995 IEEE Fellow * 2004

Israel Prize The Israel Prize (; ''pras israél'') is an award bestowed by the State of Israel, and regarded as the state's highest cultural honor. History Prior to the Israel Prize, the most significant award in the arts was the Dizengoff Prize and in Israel ...

, for computer science * 2005

Doctor Honoris Causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

University of Rennes The University of Rennes (French: ''Université de Rennes'') is a public university, public research university located in Rennes, Upper Brittany, France. Originally founded in 1460, the university was split into two universities in 1970: Univers ...

, France * 2006 ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award * 2006 Member of the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

Member profile
Academia Europaea. Retrieved 2 January 2015. * 2006 Doctor (Laura) Honoris Causa,

University of Milano-Bicocca The University of Milano-Bicocca (, UNIMIB) is a public university located in Milan, Italy, providing undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education. Established in 1998, it was ranked by the ''Times Higher Education'' 2014 ranking of the ...

, 18 May 2006 * 2006 Fellow Honoris Causa,

Open University of Israel The Open University of Israel (, ''Ha-Universita ha-Ptuha'') is a distance education, distance-education university in Israel. It is one of ten public universities in Israel recognized by the Council of Higher Education (CHE). Open University ...

* 2007

ACM Software System Award The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both". It is awarded b ...

* 2010 Emet Prize * 2010 Member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities * 2012 Doctor Honoris Causa,

Eindhoven University of Technology The Eindhoven University of Technology (), Abbreviation, abbr. TU/e, is a public university, public technical university in the Netherlands, situated in Eindhoven. In 2020–21, around 14,000 students were enrolled in its Bachelor of Science, BS ...

, The Netherlands * 2014 International 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 ...

Member profile
National Academy of Engineering. Retrieved 2 January 2015. * 2014 International Honorary Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

Newly elected members
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, April 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015. * 2019 International Member of the US

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

. * 2020 Fellow of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

(FRS) *2021 Foreign Member of the

Chinese Academy of Sciences The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...

* 2023 Harlan D. Mills Award

References

External links

David Harel
s home page at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
David Harel
's page at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. {{DEFAULTSORT:Harel, David 1950 births Living people Mathematicians from London Israeli computer scientists Israel Prize in computer sciences recipients Israeli Jews Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the IEEE Fellows of the Royal Society Formal methods people Graph drawing people Members of Academia Europaea Systems biologists Software engineering researchers Unified Modeling Language Academic staff of Weizmann Institute of Science Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Engineering Foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Biography

Awards and honors

See also

References

External links