Carnegie Mellon Libraries: University Archives: Habermann Collection
Biography
Arie Nicolaas (Nico) Habermann (b. Groningen, Netherlands June 26, 1932; d. Pittsburgh,
PA August 8, 1993) earned his B.S. in Mathematics and Physics and M.S. in Mathematics
from the Free University of Amsterdam in 1953 and 1958, respectively. After a
career as a secondary mathematics instructor, he achieved his doctorate in Applied
Mathematics from the Technological University at Eindhoven (1967), where he was
also engaged as a lecturer.
In 1968 Habermann was invited to the Department of Computer Science at Carnegie
Mellon University (CMU) as a Visiting Research Scientist; in the next year he
was appointed an Associate Professor. Promoted to Full Professor in 1974, he became
Acting Department Head in 1979, and served as official Department Head from 1980
to 1988. In the latter year he was named founding Dean of the new CMU School of
Computer Science (SCS), established under the co-direction of Allen Newell and
Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon.
With Howard Wactlar, Habermann co-founded CMU's Software Engineering Institute
(SEI) in 1985, having headed the faculty team which developed the winning proposal
for that enterprise. With the support of university president Richard Cyert and
faculty members such as Newell and Raj Reddy, Habermann was instrumental, and
tireless, in attracting funding for SEI academic programs and graduate student
research from foreign and American corporations (Siemens, ASCII, General Electric,
et alia), and from US government agencies (Department of Defense, Office of Naval
Research). But despite his administrative achievements, Habermann retained a personal
commitment to computer science education, as reflected in the ordering of his
customary signature: A. N. Habermann, Professor and Dean. At CMU he supervised
more than twenty Ph.D. theses.
Habermann's research interests lay in programming languages, operating systems,
programming environments, and development of large software systems. He was particularly
known for his work on avoidance of system deadlocks, process communication, process
synchronization by path expression, program reusability and software verification.
He was renowned for his work in the programs ALGOL 60, BLISS, Pascal, in the Department
of Defense language Ada, and for his creation of the Gandalf program development
system, which provided a user-friendly environment for system construction and
maintenance. In addition, he contributed to practical and experimental operating
systems such as Dutch professor E. W. Dijkstra's THE System, the Family of Operating
Systems (FAMOS) at CMU, the Dynamically Adaptable System (DAS) of Berlin, Germany,
and UNIX. Habermann wrote many papers and delivered numerous presentations on
his research. He also authored two textbooks: Introduction to Operating Systems
Design (Science Research Associates, 1976); and, with Dewayne E. Perry, ADA for
Experienced Programmers (Addison-Wesley, 1983).
Habermann enjoyed worldwide demand as a lecturer, conference program committee
member, evaluator of university Computer Science programs, science institution
board member or advisor, consultant to corporate research and design departments
(including Siemens and IBM), and even as an expert witness in computer systems-related
legal arbitration. His prominence in, and dedication to, the computer science
field led him to highly-regarded editorial work for the journals of the ACM (Association
for Computing Machinery), the IEEE (Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers)
journal, and the journal ACTA Informatica. His paper reviews and oversight of
reviews by valued colleagues established scientific standards of cogency and usefulness
in the literature of the discipline.
Habermann served as visiting professor at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
England (1973) and at the Technological University of Berlin, Germany (1976).
Amid an increasingly hectic, globetrotting schedule he made time to act as Adjunct
Professor of Computer Science at Jiao Tong University, Shanghai (1986-1993). From
1991 to 1993 CMU afforded him academic leave to accept the prestigious position
of Assistant Director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering at
the National Science Foundation (NSF), an organization he had previously served
in several capacities. Habermann continued his administrative duties to the SCS
and SEI, and during this demi-absence was honored by CMU as the Alan J. Perlis
Professor of Computer Science. His devoted engagement in the furthering of the
university and of computer science was cut short by his sudden death, by massive
heart attack, at the age of 61. He is survived by his wife Marta, son Frits, and
daughters Eveline Killian and Irene and Marianne Habermann.
