Gul Agha (computer scientist)

{{Other uses|Gul Agha (disambiguation){{!}}Gul Agha}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Gul Agha

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| birth_place = Sindh, Pakistan

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| fields = Computer science

| workplaces = University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

| alma_mater = California Institute of Technology

University of Michigan

| thesis_title = Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computing in Distributed Systems

| thesis_url = http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA157917

| thesis_year = 1985

| doctoral_advisor = John Holland and Carl Hewitt

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| known_for = Actor Model, Statistical Model Checking, Actor Programming Languages

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| awards = Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of the ACM

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| spouse = Jennifer S. Cole

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Gul Agha (Sindhi: گل آغا ) is a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and director of the Open Systems Laboratory. He is known for his work on the actor model of concurrent computation,{{cite journal|last=Lee|first=Edward|title=What's Ahead for Embedded Software?|journal=IEEE Computer|date=September 2000|volume=33|issue=7|pages=18–26|doi=10.1109/2.868693|url=http://ptolemy.eecs.berkeley.edu/publications/papers/00/embedfuture/|accessdate=2008-01-01|quote=Gul Agha of the University of Illinois describes actors, which extend objects to concurrent computation.}} and was also Editor-in-Chief of ACM Computing Surveys from 1999 to 2007.{{cite journal |last=Agha | first=Gul |title = Computing in Pervasive Cyberspace | journal=Communications of the ACM|volume=51|issue=1|date=January 2008 | doi = 10.1145/1327452.1327484 | pages=68–70| s2cid=12654601 }}

Agha was born and completed his early schooling in Sindh, Pakistan. Agha completed his B.S. with honors at the California Institute of Technology in the year 1977.{{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20181228084458/https://www.sindhidunya.com/gul-agha-the-talented-computer-scientist-of-sindh/ Dunya, S. Gul Agha: The Talented Computer Scientist of Sindh. Feb 26, 2016. Sindhi Dunya: Voice of Sindh Culture. Accessed September 20, 2017]}}. He received his Ph.D. in Computer and Communication Science from the University of Michigan in 1986 under the supervision of John Holland. However, much of his doctoral research was carried out in Carl Hewitt's Message-Passing Semantics Group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).{{cite web|title=Gul Agha|work=Faculty Directory, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign|url=http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/directory/directory.php?name=agha|accessdate=2007-12-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071017155754/http://www.cs.uiuc.edu/directory/directory.php?name=agha|archive-date=2007-10-17|url-status=dead}}{{cite journal|author=Gul Agha|title=Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems|version= Doctoral Dissertation|publisher=MIT Press|year=1986|hdl=1721.1/6952}}*Carl Hewitt and Gul Agha. Guarded Horn clause languages: are they deductive and Logical? International Conference on Fifth Generation Computer Systems, Ohmsha 1988. Tokyo. Also in Artificial Intelligence at MIT, Vol. 2. MIT Press 1991. Agha's dissertation was published by the MIT Press as Actors: a model of concurrent computation in distributed systems, a book which, according to the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, has been cited over 3000 times.{{cite book|author=ACM|title=Actors: a model of concurrent computation in distributed systems|url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=7929|work=Guide to Computing Literature|year=1986 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=9780262010924 |accessdate=2009-01-04}}

Interests

Agha enjoys Blues music and is a vegan and a pacifist. He has three daughters, including filmmaker Sindha Agha, and lives with his wife Jennifer S. Cole in Illinois.

Awards

Agha became a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 2002.{{cite web|author=IEEE|title=Fellow Class of 2002|website=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) |url=http://www.ieee.org/web/membership/fellows/Chronology/2002.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214052921/http://www.ieee.org/web/membership/fellows/Chronology/2002.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 14, 2007|accessdate=2007-12-30}} He is also a Golden Core Member of the IEEE Computer Society, and a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society Meritorious Service Award, and was an International Lecturer for the ACM from 1992 to 1997.

Agha was elected as an ACM Fellow in 2018 for "research in concurrent programming and formal methods, specifically the Actor Model".{{citation|url=https://www.acm.org/media-center/2018/december/fellows-2018|title=2018 ACM Fellows Honored for Pivotal Achievements that Underpin the Digital Age|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|date=December 5, 2018}}