Scienceאמיר פנואלי

Amir Pnueli

Amir Pnueli was an Israeli computer scientist who introduced temporal logic into computer science and received the 1996 Turing Award.

1941 to 2009Temporal logic in computer scienceThe 1996 Turing AwardProgram and systems verificationCo-developing the Statemate tool

Born: 22 April 1941, Nahalal
Died: 2 November 2009, New York City
Occupation: computer scientist, engineer, pedagogue, university teacher
Education: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Weizmann Institute of Science

Amir Pnueli was born in 1941 in Nahalal

Pnueli was born in 1941 in Nahalal. His father, S. Y. Pnueli, was a school principal in Nahalal and later founded the Hebrew literature department at Tel Aviv University. In 1945 the family moved to Holon, and he studied in Holon and at Tichon Hadash in Tel Aviv.

He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at the Technion. He completed a doctorate in applied mathematics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1967, with a thesis on ocean tides. During postdoctoral work at Stanford University he moved to computer science.

He returned to the Weizmann Institute in 1969 and moved to Tel Aviv University in 1973, where he set up the computer science program. In 1980 he went back to the Weizmann Institute. His 1977 paper on the temporal logic of programs brought him the Turing Award, and from 1999 he also held a position at New York University.

He co-founded Mini Systems in 1971 and Ad-Cad in 1984 with David Harel, which developed the Statemate tool. He died in New York on November 2, 2009. He was married to Ariela and they had 3 children.