Helmut Veith

{{short description|Austrian computer scientist}}

{{Infobox scientist

| name = Helmut Veith

| image =

| image_size =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1971|2|5|df=y}}

| birth_place = Vienna, Austria

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2016|3|12|1971|2|5|df=y}}

| death_place = Vienna, Austria

| citizenship = Austria

| field = {{Plainlist|

| work_institution = {{Plainlist|

| alma_mater = TU Wien

| doctoral_advisor = Georg Gottlob{{MathGenealogy|id=102236}}

| website = {{URL|http://forsyte.at/people/veith/}}

}}

Helmut Veith (5 February 1971 – 12 March 2016) was an Austrian

computer scientist who worked on the areas of [[Computer Aided Verification|computer-aided

verification]], software engineering, computer security, and logic in computer science. He was a Professor of Informatics

at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien), Austria.{{cite web|title=Helmut Veith|url=https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9VeRxLIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao|website=Google Scholar|accessdate=3 April 2016}}{{cite journal|last1=Clarke|first1=Edmund|last2=Grumberg|first2=Orna|last3=Jha|first3=Somesh|last4=Lu|first4=Yuan|last5=Veith|first5=Helmut|title=Counterexample-guided abstraction refinement|journal=Computer Aided Verification|date=July 2000|volume=1855|issue=2000|pages=154–169|doi=10.1007/10722167_15|doi-access=free}}{{Cite web | url=http://www.profil.at/wissenschaft/nachruf-helmut-veith-tod-6278790 | title=Nachruf auf Helmut Veith: Ein unlogischer Tod| date=2016-03-21}}

Education

Veith received his Diplom-Ingenieur in computational logic at TU Wien

in 1994. He received his doctorate in computer science in 1998 under

the supervision of Professor Georg Gottlob on the topic of [[computational complexity theory|computational

complexity]] of logics and database query languages.

Career and research

Veith was a professor at the Faculty of Informatics of TU Wien, and an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.

Previously he was a professor at the Department of Computer Science of TU Darmstadt (2008–2009) and TU Munich (2003–2008), and an associate professor at TU Wien (2001–2003).

He received his habilitation at TU Wien in 2001.

Veith published more than 120 refereed publications {{cite web|title=Helmut Veith|url=http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/v/Veith:Helmut|website=DBLP|accessdate=3 April 2016}} in the areas of

computer-aided verification and program analysis, logic in computer

science, software engineering,

computer security, and theoretical computer science. He was a co-editor of the Handbook of Model Checking.{{cite book|last1=Clarke|first1=Edmund|last2=Henzinger|first2=Thomas|last3=Veith|first3=Helmut|title=Handbook of model checking|date=10 Sep 2016|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-3-319-10575-8|edition=2017|url=https://www.springer.com/de/book/9783319105741|accessdate=3 April 2016}} In 2014, he was co-chair of the Vienna Summer of Logic 2014, the largest conference on logic and computer science in history.

Veith is best known for his role in the development of

Counterexample-guided Abstraction Refinement (CEGAR), which is a key

ingredient in modern model checkers for software and hardware. His

research applies formal and logical methods to problems in software

technology and engineering, focusing on model checking, software

verification and testing, embedded software and computer security.

Science communication

Veith was a co-founder of the [http://www.vcla.at/ Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms] (together with Stefan Szeider).{{Cite web|url=https://www.derstandard.at/story/1326504261313/zentrum-fuer-grundlagen-der-informatik|title=Zentrum für Grundlagen der Informatik - derStandard.at|website=DER STANDARD|language=de-AT|access-date=2019-11-26}} Veith was member of the organizational board of the largest logic conference in the history – the Vienna Summer of Logic 2014, which consisted of twelve large conferences and numerous workshops, attracting over 2000 researchers from all over the world to Vienna. Veith served as the speaker of the FWF-funded Doctoral College on Logical Methods in Computer Science and as the deputy coordinator of the National Research Network Rigorous Systems Engineering (RiSE).{{Cite web|url=https://www.tuwien.at/en/tu-wien/news/news-articles/news/helmut-veith-1971-2016-1/|title=Helmut Veith: 1971 - 2016|date=2019-11-25|website=www.tuwien.at|language=en|access-date=2019-11-26}}

Awards and honours

Veith was awarded his doctorate with highest distinction "sub auspiciis

praesidentis" in a ceremony presided over by the president of Austria. With

his co-authors, he received the CAV Award 2015 {{cite web|title=CAV Award|url=http://i-cav.org/cav-award|website=International Conference on Computer-Aided Verification|accessdate=3 April 2016}} honouring contributions

of fundamental importance to the field of computer-aided verification

for his contribution to the development of CEGAR. His work on the

software model checker MAGIC received the ACM Distinguished Paper

Award for contribution to the study of verification of modular

software.{{cite web|title=ACM SIGSOFT Distinguished Paper Award|url=http://www.sigsoft.org/awards/distinguishedPaperAward.html|website=SIGSOFT|accessdate=3 April 2016}}{{cite journal|last1=Chaki|first1=Sagar|last2=Clarke|first2=Edmund|last3=Groce|first3=Alex|last4=Jha|first4=Somesh|last5=Veith|first5=Helmut|title=Modular Verification of Software Components in C|journal=IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering|date=June 2004|volume=30|issue=6|pages=388–402|doi=10.1109/TSE.2004.22|citeseerx=10.1.1.5.9973|s2cid=7099578 }} In 2016, Veith was posthumously awarded an ERC Advanced Grant on the topic Harnessing Model Checking Technology for Distributed Algorithms.

References