Gaston Gonnet

Gaston H. Gonnet is a Uruguayan computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his contributions to the Maple computer algebra system and the creation of an electronic version of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Education and professional life

Gonnet received his doctorate in computer science from the University of Waterloo in 1977. His thesis was entitled "Interpolation and Interpolation Hash Searching". His advisor was J. Alan George.

In 1980 Gonnet co-founded the Symbolic Computation Group at UW. The work of SCG on a general-purpose computer algebra system later formed the core of the Maple system. In 1988, Gonnet co-founded (with Keith Geddes) the private company Waterloo Maple Inc., to sell Maple commercially.

In 1984 Gonnet co-founded the New Oxford English Dictionary project at UW, which sought to create a searchable electronic version of the OED. This project later culminated in another successful commercial venture, the Open Text Corporation.

Gonnet is presently a professor at ETH Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland. He is also Chief Scientist at Aruna Solutions.

External links

* [http://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/gonnet/ Personal page at ETH Zurich]
* [http://history.siam.org/oralhistories/gonnet.htm Interview with Gaston Gonnet] , SIAM History of Numerical Analysis and Computing, March 16, 2005