Francisco Javier Esparza Estaun (born 27 April 1964 in

Pamplona Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...

, Spain) is a Spanish

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 ...

. He is a professor at the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; ) is a public research university in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Established in 1868 by King Ludwig II ...

Education

Javier Esparza Estaun received his Master of Science degree in

Theoretical Physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

from the

University of Zaragoza The University of Zaragoza, sometimes referred to as Saragossa University () is a public university with teaching campuses and research centres spread over the three provinces of Aragon (Spain). Founded in 1542, it is one of the List of oldest u ...

(1987). He earned his Doctoral degree (PhD) in Computer Science (1990, on free-choice Petri nets) from the same university. He habilitated 1994 at the

University of Hildesheim The University of Hildesheim (in German ''Universität Hildesheim'') is a public university located in Hildesheim, in the German state of Lower Saxony. History Alfeld University of Education (Pädagogische Hochschule Alfeld) – University o ...

on the subject of

Petri net unfoldings Analysis of Petri nets can be performed by means of constructing either reachable state spaces (or reachable markings) or via the process of graph-based unfolding. The prefix of a Petri net unfolding, which is an acyclic Petri net graph, contains th ...

Career

During his habilitation and in the period afterwards, Javier Esparza's focus was on

concurrency theory Concurrency refers to the ability of a system to execute multiple tasks through simultaneous execution or time-sharing (context switching), sharing resources and managing interactions. Concurrency improves responsiveness, throughput, and scalabi ...

and the theory of Petri nets. He made important contributions to Petri net structure theory and to the unfolding approach, initially proposed by Kenneth L. McMillan, and he is the co-author of two books on these subjects. After his habilitation, he was employed as an associate professor at Technische Universität München (1994–2001). He was then successively Chair of Theoretical Computer Science at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

(2001–2003) and Chair of Software Reliability and Security at the Universität Stuttgart (2003–2007). Since 2007, he holds the chair for Foundations of Software Reliability and Theoretical Computer Science, again at Technische Universität München. He has also made contributions to the automata-theoretic approach to software

model checking In computer science, model checking or property checking is a method for checking whether a finite-state model of a system meets a given specification (also known as correctness). This is typically associated with hardware or software syst ...

, to

program analysis In computer science, program analysis is the process of analyzing the behavior of computer programs regarding a property such as correctness, robustness, safety and liveness. Program analysis focuses on two major areas: program optimization an ...

, and to the verification of infinite-state systems. More recently, his work has focused on the verification of parametrised and stochastic systems. He has published over 250 peer-reviewed scientific papers in the aforementioned fields, as well as a book on an algorithmic approach to automata theory (coauthored with Michael Blondin.) Multiple software verification tools have been developed by his group, such as Moped and jMoped, Rabinizer, Strix, and Peregrine. He received an Advanced Grant from the

European Research Council The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific ...

in 2018 and has been Principal Investigator of more than 20 research projects, most of them collaborative in an international context. He has frequently been invited as a speaker at Computer Science conferences and has served as a Chair or a member of various professional Program, Steering and Selection Committees.

Awards and honours

Javier Esparza has been awarded an honorary doctorate in Informatics from the

Masaryk University Masaryk University (MU) (; ) is the second largest university in the Czech Republic, a member of the Compostela Group and the Utrecht Network. Founded in 1919 in Brno, it now consists of ten faculties and 35,115 students. It is named after To ...

of Brno, Czech Republic, in 2009, and he is an elected member of

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 ...

since 2011. He received the

CONCUR In Western jurisprudence, concurrence (also contemporaneity or simultaneity) is the apparent need to prove the simultaneous occurrence of both ("guilty action") and ("guilty mind"), to constitute a crime; except in crimes of strict liability ...

''Test-of Time Award'' 2021 for his paper ''Reachability Analysis of Pushdown Automata: Application to Model-checking'' (co-authored with Ahmed Bouajjani and Oded Maler); several best paper awards at conferences; multiple times a ''Best Teaching'' prize at the Technische Universität München; and a ''Dissertation Prize'' of Universidad de Zaragoza (1990).

References

External links

Official page of Javier Esparza at the Technische Universität München (Lehrstuhl 7 / Theoretische Informatik)

Javier Esparza on Google Scholar
an

Javier Esparza in the Mathematics Genealogy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esparza, Javier Living people 1964 births People from Pamplona University of Zaragoza alumni Academic staff of the Technical University of Munich Members of Academia Europaea Spanish computer scientists Formal methods people