Michael Paul Fourman

FBCS Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in infor ...

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This so ...

(born 12 September 1950) is Professor of Computer Systems at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...

in Scotland, UK, and was Head of the School of Informatics from 2001–2009. Fourman is worked in applications of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premis ...

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

, and cognitive science – more specifically,

formal model In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language consists of words whose letters are taken from an alphabet and are well-formed according to a specific set of rules. The alphabet of a formal language consists of sym ...

s of

digital system Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. This is in contrast to analog electronics and analog signals. Digital electronic circuits are usually ...

system design Systems design interfaces, and data for an electronic control system to satisfy specified requirements. System design could be seen as the application of system theory to product development. There is some overlap with the disciplines of system an ...

tools,

proof assistant In computer science and mathematical logic, a proof assistant or interactive theorem prover is a software tool to assist with the development of formal proofs by human-machine collaboration. This involves some sort of interactive proof editor ...

categorical semantics __NOTOC__ Categorical logic is the branch of mathematics in which tools and concepts from category theory are applied to the study of mathematical logic. It is also notable for its connections to theoretical computer science. In broad terms, cat ...

and propositional planning.

Qualifications

Fourman received a BSc in Mathematics and Philosophy from the

University of Bristol The University of Bristol is a Red brick university, red brick Russell Group research university in Bristol, England. It received its royal charter in 1909, although it can trace its roots to a Society of Merchant Venturers, Merchant Venturers' sc ...

in 1971, then his MSc in

Mathematical Logic Mathematical logic is the study of formal logic within mathematics. Major subareas include model theory, proof theory, set theory, and recursion theory. Research in mathematical logic commonly addresses the mathematical properties of formal ...

from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

in 1972. He wrote his

DPhil A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

thesis ''Connections between Category Theory and Logic'' under the supervision of

Dana Scott Dana Stewart Scott (born October 11, 1932) is an American logician who is the emeritus Hillman University Professor of Computer Science, Philosophy, and Mathematical Logic at Carnegie Mellon University; he is now retired and lives in Berkeley, C ...

at Oxford, defending his thesis in 1974.

Career

He continued to work with Scott as an SRC postdoctoral Research Fellow and Junior Research Fellow of Wolfson College, in Oxford, until 1976, when he moved to the USA, first as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics at

Clark University Clark University is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1887 with a large endowment from its namesake Jonas Gilman Clark, a prominent businessman, Clark was one of the first modern research universities in th ...

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, making it the second- most populous city in New England after ...

, then, from 1977–1982, as JF Ritt Assistant Professor of Mathematics at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

in New York. In 1983 he moved, with a

Science and Engineering Research Council The Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) and its predecessor the Science Research Council (SRC) were the UK agencies in charge of publicly funded scientific and engineering research activities, including astronomy, biotechnology and bi ...

Fellowship, to the Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at

Brunel University Brunel University London is a public research university located in the Uxbridge area of London, England. It was founded in 1966 and named after the Victorian engineer and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In June 1 ...

. He was appointed to a Readership, and then to the Chair of Formal Systems, at Brunel in 1986. Fourman was co-founder and Technical Director of Abstract Hardware Limited (AHL), a company formed in 1986. He was central in the development of the

LAMBDA system A Dynkin system, named after Eugene Dynkin is a collection of subsets of another universal set \Omega satisfying a set of axioms weaker than those of -algebra. Dynkin systems are sometimes referred to as -systems (Dynkin himself used this term ...

(Logic And Mathematics Behind Design Automation) to aid

hardware design Processor design is a subfield of computer engineering and electronics engineering (fabrication) that deals with creating a processor, a key component of computer hardware. The design process involves choosing an instruction set and a certain ex ...

, a tool implemented in the SML programming language and marketed by AHL. He left the company in 1997. In 1988 he joined the

Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science The Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science (LFCS) is a research institute within the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland. It was founded in 1987 and is a community of theoretical computer scientists with in ...

at the

, and was appointed to the Chair of Computer Systems in the Department of Computer Science. In 1998 he was founding Head of the Division of Informatics, which became the current School of Informatics, incorporating the former Department of Artificial Intelligence, the

Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute The Artificial Intelligence Applications Institute (AIAI) at the University of Edinburgh School of Informatics, School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh was a Non-profit organization, non-profit technology transfer organisation tha ...

, the Centre for Cognitive Science, the

Human Communication Research Centre Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultur ...

, and the Department of Computer Science. He has again been Head of the School of Informatics since August 2002. He has held visiting positions at universities in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

(1975),

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Nethe ...

(1977, 1980),

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge beca ...

(1979–80), Sydney (1982),

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

(1983), and

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

(1994).

Bibliography

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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Fourman, Michael Paul Clark University faculty 1950 births Living people 20th-century British mathematicians 21st-century British mathematicians British computer scientists Fellows of the British Computer Society Formal methods people British bloggers Alumni of the University of Oxford Alumni of the University of Bristol Columbia University faculty Academics of Brunel University London Academics of the University of Edinburgh British logicians