Fernando Pérez is a Colombian physicist, software developer, and

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

advocate. He is best known as the creator of the

IPython IPython (Interactive Python) is a command shell for interactive computing in multiple programming languages, originally developed for the Python programming language, that offers introspection, rich media, shell syntax, tab completion, and his ...

programming environment, for which he received the 2012 Free Software Award from the

Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by Richard Stallman on October 4, 1985. The organisation supports the free software movement, with the organization's preference for software being distributed ...

and for his work on

Project Jupyter Project Jupyter (pronounced "Jupiter") is a project to develop open-source software, Open standard, open standards, and services for interactive computing across multiple Programming language, programming languages. It was spun off from IPython ...

for which he received the 2017

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 ...

. He is a fellow of the

Python Software Foundation The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is an American nonprofit organization devoted to the Python programming language, launched on March 6, 2001. The mission of the foundation is to foster development of the Python community and is responsible fo ...

, and a founding member of the NumFOCUS organization.

Life and career

Fernando Pérez was born in

Medellín Medellín ( ; or ), officially the Special District of Science, Technology and Innovation of Medellín (), is the List of cities in Colombia, second-largest city in Colombia after Bogotá, and the capital of the department of Antioquia Departme ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, and has BSc in Physics from University of Antioquia and a PhD in

particle physics Particle physics or high-energy physics is the study of Elementary particle, fundamental particles and fundamental interaction, forces that constitute matter and radiation. The field also studies combinations of elementary particles up to the s ...

from

University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...

, where he worked on numerical simulations in

Lattice QCD Lattice QCD is a well-established non- perturbative approach to solving the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) theory of quarks and gluons. It is a lattice gauge theory formulated on a grid or lattice of points in space and time. When the size of the ...

. He moved to California in 2008, where he currently works as an associate professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Statistics. Previously, he was a staff scientist at

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

and associate researcher at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science (BIDS). Pérez was named Faculty Director at BIDS stating July 2024. Pérez began working on

as a side project in 2001, and is a co-founder of

, which evolved from IPython in 2014. He received a 2023

NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal NASA's Exceptional Public Service Medal is a United States government award awarded to any non-Government individual or to an individual who was not a Government employee during the period in which the service was performed for sustained performa ...

for his leadership of Project Jupyter.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez, Fernando Colombian physicists Living people Year of birth missing (living people) Python (programming language) people Free software people Open source advocates