Nico Habermann
Encyclopedia
Arie Nicolaas Habermann often known as Nico Habermann, was a noted Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 computer scientist
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

.

Habermann was born in Groningen, Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, and earned his B.S. in mathematics and physics and M.S. in mathematics from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1953 and 1958. After working as a mathematics teacher, in 1967 he received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the Eindhoven University of Technology
Eindhoven University of Technology
The ' is a university of technology located in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The motto of the university is: Mens agitat molem . The university was the second of its kind in the Netherlands, only Delft University of Technology existed previously. Until mid-1980 it was known as the...

 under advisor Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ; ) was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000.Shortly before his...

.

In 1968 Habermann was invited to join the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....

 as a Visiting Research Scientist. In 1969 he was appointed an Associate Professor, and was made Full Professor in 1974, Acting Department Head in 1979, and Department Head from 1980 to 1988, after which he was named Dean of the new School of Computer Science (established under Allen Newell
Allen Newell
Allen Newell was a researcher in computer science and cognitive psychology at the RAND corporation and at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science, Tepper School of Business, and Department of Psychology...

 and Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...

). He also cofounded Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute
Software Engineering Institute
The Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute is a federally funded research and development center headquartered on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. SEI also has offices in Arlington, Virginia, and Frankfurt, Germany. The SEI operates...

 (SEI) in 1985.

Habermann's research included programming language
Programming language
A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....

s, operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

s, and development of large software systems. He was known for his work on inter-process communication
Inter-process communication
In computing, Inter-process communication is a set of methods for the exchange of data among multiple threads in one or more processes. Processes may be running on one or more computers connected by a network. IPC methods are divided into methods for message passing, synchronization, shared...

, process synchronization and deadlock
Deadlock
A deadlock is a situation where in two or more competing actions are each waiting for the other to finish, and thus neither ever does. It is often seen in a paradox like the "chicken or the egg"...

 avoidance, and software verification
Software verification
Software verification is a broader and more complex discipline of software engineering whose goal is to assure that software fully satisfies all the expected requirements.There are two fundamental approaches to verification:...

, but particularly for the computer languages ALGOL 60
ALGOL 60
ALGOL 60 is a member of the ALGOL family of computer programming languages. It gave rise to many other programming languages, including BCPL, B, Pascal, Simula, C, and many others. ALGOL 58 introduced code blocks and the begin and end pairs for delimiting them...

, BLISS, Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...

, and Ada
Ada (programming language)
Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages...

. He also contributed to new operating systems such as Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Dijkstra
Edsger Wybe Dijkstra ; ) was a Dutch computer scientist. He received the 1972 Turing Award for fundamental contributions to developing programming languages, and was the Schlumberger Centennial Chair of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin from 1984 until 2000.Shortly before his...

's THE multiprogramming system
THE multiprogramming system
The THE multiprogramming system was a computer operating system designed by a team led by Edsger W. Dijkstra, described in monographs in 1965-66 and published in 1968....

, the Family of Operating Systems (FAMOS) at Carnegie Mellon, Berlin's Dynamically Adaptable System (DAS), and UNIX
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

.

Habermann served as visiting professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle University is a major research-intensive university located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England. It was established as a School of Medicine and Surgery in 1834 and became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne by an Act of Parliament in August 1963. Newcastle University is...

 (1973) and the Technical University of Berlin
Technical University of Berlin
The Technische Universität Berlin is a research university located in Berlin, Germany. Translating the name into English is discouraged by the university, however paraphrasing as Berlin Institute of Technology is recommended by the university if necessary .The TU Berlin was founded...

 (1976), as well as Adjunct Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...

(1986–1993).

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