Luc P. Devroye is a Belgian

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

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

and a James McGill

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

in the School of Computer Science of

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

Montreal, Quebec Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Canada. Devroye wrote around 300 mathematical articles, mostly on probabilistic analysis of algorithms, on the

asymptotic analysis In mathematical analysis, asymptotic analysis, also known as asymptotics, is a method of describing Limit (mathematics), limiting behavior. As an illustration, suppose that we are interested in the properties of a function as becomes very larg ...

of combinatorial structures (like trees and graphs), and on

random number generation Random number generation is a process by which, often by means of a random number generator (RNG), a sequence of numbers or symbols is generated that cannot be reasonably predicted better than by random chance. This means that the particular ou ...

(more precisely, on efficient simulation of different probability distributions). He also contributed to

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

(creating several fonts).

Education and career

He studied at

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven KU Leuven (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. Founded in 1425, it is the oldest university in Belgium and the oldest university in the Low Countries. In addition to its main camp ...

and subsequently at Osaka University and in 1976 received his PhD from

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

under the supervision of Terry Wagner, for his thesis « Nonparametric Discrimination and Density Estimation ». Devroye then joined the

in 1977.

Awards

Devroye won an E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (1987), a Humboldt Research Award (2004), the Killam Prize (2005) and the Statistical Society of Canada gold medal (2008). He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Louvain (UCLouvain) in 2002, and he received an honorary doctorate from

University of Antwerp The University of Antwerp () is a major Belgian university located in the city of Antwerp. The official abbreviation is ''UAntwerp''. The University of Antwerp has about 20,000 students, which makes it the third-largest university in Flanders. ...

on March 29, 2012. In 2018, he was awarded the Flajolet Lecture Prize, and, in 2019, he got the of the French Statistical Society.

References

External links

Luc Devroye's Homepage

{{DEFAULTSORT:Devroye, Luc Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Belgian computer scientists Academic staff of McGill University Anglophone Quebec people

Education and career

Awards

See also

References

External links