NYU faculty remembers Amir Pnueli

"He was a brilliant man, but most of all, he was a very modest person, a very sweet man."

That's how Benjamin Goldberg, an NYU associate professor of computer science, remembers his colleague in the department, Amir Pnueli. Pnueli died on Nov. 2 from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 68.

Pnueli began teaching computer science at NYU in 1999. He gained international recognition for work in his field of verification, which is verifying the correctness and efficiency of hardware and software systems.

"Everything is becoming more and more computerized," said Michael Overton, chair of the computer science department, about the significance of Pnueli's work. "We rely on computers for everything."

In addition to verification, Pnueli introduced temporal logic, a system of rules for reasoning about time, into the computer science field. Previously, temporal logic had been limited to mathematics.

In 1996, as a result of his work with verification and temporal logic, Pnueli received the Alan M. Turing Award, the most prestigious distinction in computer science.

"There's no Nobel Prize award for computer science, but the Turing award is considered the highest award in computer science," Overton said.

In addition, Pnueli, who was from Israel, was awarded the Israel Prize for computer science in 2000, and in 2007 he was inducted as a fellow in the Association for Computing Machinery, the first scientific and educational computing society.

But aside from the recognition Pnueli gained for his work, his colleagues remember him as a friendly, well-liked person.

"You would never know that he had won all of the important awards in his fields and was considered a giant," Goldberg said.

At yesterday's monthly University Senate meeting, NYU President John Sexton held a moment of silence to acknowledge Pnueli's passing. Sexton recognized Pnueli for his significant contributions to computer science.

"Amir was one of the true lights of our faculty," Sexton said. "This is a loss that's going to be felt by this community deeply."

Goldberg said the computer science department plans to hold a memorial and symposium in Pnueli's honor, likely in January.

Michaela Kron is university editor.