Akinori YONEZAWA is professor at Department of Computer Science, University of Tokyo. He was born in 1947, and received his B.E. and M.E. degrees from University of Tokyo in 1970, and 1972, and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977.
He is best known as the pioneer of the concept, theory and applications of "concrrent objects", a generalization of the concept of objects in the sense of object-oriented programming. Some of large scale applications of concurrent objects include Second Life system (Linden lab.), Twitter systems, and NAMD (a molecular dynamics simulation platform for nano-biology, developed at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaing)
Large Scale Applications of Concurrent Objects
His current major research interests are in the areas of concurrent/parallel computation models, programming languages, object-oriented computing, and distributed computing. He is the designer of an object-oriented concurrent language ABCL/1 and currently leading the research project on object-based concurrency and distribution. He is one of the pioneers of object-based/oriented concurrent computing: he not only designed concurrent object languages, but also developed with Dr. Kenjiro Taura very efficient implementation schemes for various kinds of parallel machines, and laid with Dr. Naoki Kobayashi theoretical foundations for concurrent objects based on linear logic. Furthermore, With Takuo Watanabe, in 1986, he published the seminal paper applying the idea of Reflection to concurrent systems.
He is the author and editor of several books including:
and served as the program chair for ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, and Applications (OOPSLA), 1990, and had been a member of the editorial boards of IEEE Computer and IEEE Concurrency. Also, he served as an associate editor of ACM Transaction of Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS). Since 1999, he has been an ACM Fellow.
He was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of German National Research Institute of Computer Science (GMD), and served as the president of Japanese Society of Software Science and Technology and a member of the Evaluation and Promotion Committee of Japanese MITI's Real World Computing Program. He was also appointed by Prime Minister to a member of the Reformation and Deregulation Committee and the chairman of its Education Subcommittee (2001-2004). Since April 2006, he has been the director of the Information Technology Center, University of Tokyo. Also, he was a member of Microsoft Trust Worthy Computing Academic Advisory Board (TCAAB),2006-2020.
In 2008, he received the AITO Dahl-Nygaard Prize for his piooneering notion of "concurrent objects" and his subsequent work of theory and implementation of concurrent objects. Also he was awareded a "Medal of Honour with a Purple Ribbon of Japan (Shiju-housho)" at Imperial Palace in 2009.
Since 2007, he has been heavily involved in Japanese National Supercomputer Project and he is one of the executive board of the national high performance computing infrastrcure which includes the national supercomputer K to be fully operational in the city of Kobe in the middle of 2012.
Yonezawa received Medal with Purple Ribbon at Imperial Palace (2009)
U. Tokyo News on Yonezawa receiving Dahl-Nygaard Prize
Talk at Dahl-Nygaard Prize receiving Ceremony at ECOOP2008, Cyprus
Early Concurrent/Mobile Objects, ECOOP'06 Nantes, July 2006, LNCS No. 4067, pp.98-104 (pdf)
Recent Workshop 'Mobile Objects/Code and Security,' Tokyo, 2000 (ppt)
'Origin and Future of Mobile Object's, Boston, 2000 (ppt) (pdf) (ps)
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