Victoria to host top computer scientist

One of the world’s most outstanding computer scientists, Professor Sir Tony Hoare, is to give a seminar at Victoria University.

Senior Lecturer Lindsay Groves says the seminar is a rare opportunity to hear, meet and question one of the world’s foremost computer scientists.

Professor Hoare is a leading figure in software engineering and a strong advocate for mathematically based, rigorous approaches to software design. He is best known as the inventor of Quicksort, but has also influenced the design of programming languages such as Pascal, Modula and Occam.

Professor Hoare’s seminar is related to his interest in unifying various programming theories so that the discoveries of different research schools can be combined and used reliably by industry.

Professor Hoare recently retired from Oxford University after 20 years as the head of their Programming Research Group. He has now taken up a position at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK, and was knighted in the British New Year Honours List. Professor Hoare is a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Professor Hoare’s seminar “Unifying theories for logic programming” will be held in the Cotton Lecture Theatre 122, at 11.00 am on Thursday 27 January. An abstract is available at www.mcs.vuw.ac.nz/events/seminars/upcoming-seminars.html.