French
Institute Director: Dr. Gallier
Dr.
Jean H. Gallier, professor of computer and information science,
has been named director of the French Institute for Culture and
Technology (FICT) by Provost Robert L. Barchi and SAS Dean Samuel
H. Preston. His appointment was effective July 1. Dr. Gallier
succeeds Dr. Barry S. Cooperman, who had been FICT's director
since 1993.
Dr. Gallier's
appointment followed a University-wide search led by a committee
composed of faculty from SAS, the School of Medicine and SEAS.
Dr. Gallier
graduated in 1972 from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees,
one of the top French "Grandes Ecoles." In 1978, he received his
Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA.
Dr. Gallier
joined the Penn faculty in 1978 as an assistant professor in the
department of computer and information science, where he rose
to associate professor in 1984 and to professor in 1990. He was
Graduate Chair of the department from 1988 to 1990. Since 1994,
Dr. Gallier has a secondary appointment in the department of mathematics.
Dr. Gallier
has worked in various areas, ranging from program correctness
and automated theorem-proving, incremental compilation, typed
lambda calculi and proof theory, to geometric modeling, computer
graphics, and algebraic geometry. He is the author of over sixty
original papers, and three books, Logic for Computer Science
(1986), Curves and Surfaces in Geometric Modeling (1999)
and Geometric Methods and Applications (2000). He serves
on the editorial board of several professional journals, including
Theoretical Computer Science since 1992 and the Journal
of Symbolic Computation since 1988. Dr. Gallier was also honored
for his teaching, receiving the Lindback Award for Distinguished
Teaching in 1983.
The French
Institute for Culture and Technology was created in 1992. Its
purpose is to strengthen and enhance relations among the University,
the larger Delaware Valley Francophone community, and French and
Francophone countries.