Prof. Maurice Nivat

December 21, 1937 – September 21, 2017

Maurice Nivat was a French computer scientist. His research spanned the areas of formal languages, programming language semantics, and discrete geometry. He was a Professor of Theoretical Computer Science at the University Paris VII "Denis Diderot" until he retired in 2002. He remained as Professor Emeritus until his death in 2017.

Maurice Nivat was extremely influential in theoretical computer science in Europe. In 1972 he was one of the founders and first President of the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science, EATCS. Also in 1972 he founded the ICALP conference series, organising it in Paris. In 1973 he started a series of Spring Schools in France known as "Ecole de Printemps d'Informatique Théorique", that still takes place annually. And in 1975 the first issue of the journal Theoretical Computer Science was published, with Nivat as founding Editor-in-Chief, a role he held for 25 years. Later, he was involved in the foundation of the TAPSOFT and ETAPS conference series, the FOSSACS conference, and many other initiatives.

Since 1983, Maurice Nivat was a corresponding member of the French Academy of Sciences. He was also an officer of both the Legion d’honneur and the Ordre national du Mérite, and a commander of the Ordre des Palmes Académiques. He won the EATCS award in 2002. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Bologna in 1997 and the University of Quebec in 2006.