Israel Prize for I-Logix cofounder

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Apr 30, 2004

I-Logix cofounder Dr David Harel has been selected to receive one of Israel's highest honours, The Israel Prize.

I-Logix cofounder Dr David Harel has been selected to receive one of Israel's highest honours, The Israel Prize.

Dr Harel was nominated for his significant contributions in the field of computer science and is the second person in his family to receive the honour.

His father was awarded the Israel Prize in 2002 for his research into general literature.

Dr Harel is the Dean of Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel.

He is the inventor of the language of Statecharts, co-inventor of Live Sequence Charts, and was part of the team that designed the tools Statemate, Rhapsody and the Play-Engine.

His work is central to the behavioural aspects of the Universal Modelling Language (UML).

He has authored books on a variety of topics including the computability and complexity theory, logics of programs, theory of databases, automata theory, visual languages, systems engineering, and the communication and synthesis of smell.

He cofounded I-Logix in 1987.

With headquarters in Andover, Massachusetts and worldwide distribution and support centres, I-Logix has become a global leader in the embedded systems and software solutions market.

Dr Harel was born in Leeds, England, and emigrated to Israel at the age of seven.

He studied at the Mativ Meir yeshiva in Jerusalem, and after his military service, began studying computer science and mathematics at Bar-Ilan University where he received his BSc in 1974.

Dr Harel went on to attain his MSc from Tel-Aviv University in 1976 and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978.

He spent two years at IBM's Yorktown Heights Research Centre, and sabbatical years at both Carnegie-Mellon and Cornell Universities.

Dr Harel has received a number of awards, including the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award in 1992 and the 1997 Israeli Prime Minister's Award.

He is a Fellow of the ACM and the IEEE.

The award was presented to Dr Harel on Tuesday 27th April 2004 as part of the Israeli Independence Day celebration.