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More information on work and publications can be found at:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pierre_Jacques_Courtois

 

Industrial and Engineering

Since October 1991:        Senior expert at Bel V (formerly AV Nuclear), the technical support subsidiary of the Belgian Federal Agency for Nuclear Safety (http://www.belv.be/). Technical assessments and evaluations required for the regulatory licensing of computer-based systems and software important to safety in nuclear power reactors and other nuclear installations. Involved in related R&D, standards, and international nuclear safety organisations’ activities.
1963-1991:             Head of research group on Computer and Communication Systems at PRLB, the Philips Research laboratory in Brussels.

Academic

Emeritus Professor of the Computer Science Department of the Ecole polytechnique of Louvain-la-Neuve University; teaching (1972 – 2002) on computer networks, distributed and fault-tolerant computer systems, and parallel programming.

Teaching and research positions held at Carnegie-Mellon University (1971-1972), Brussels University (chargé de cours 1971-1981), Pisa University (1980, 1982), and, as a "Lansdowne 1984 Lecturer" at Victoria University, British Columbia.

Supervisor of master and PhD theses (two of which were granted the Belgian FNRS-IBM prize, H. Vantilborgh (1982) and P. Semal (1993).

Member, from 1984 to 1987, of the international jury of the Philips European Contest for Young Scientists and Inventors.

Research

Research interests have been in the area of distributed computer and communication systems engineering, and include performance and reliability models applied to these systems. Early work, started in the early seventies at Carnegie-Mellon University with D.L. Parnas and Pr. H.A. Simon, Nobel Laureate, addressed methods for organising and structuring complex artificial systems of cooperating parallel processes. This work was later oriented to performance models and led, at Philips in the seventies and eighties, to a now well used numerical decomposition method for large stiff Markovian models .

Research on optimisation methods for data communication networks, routing and flow control algorithms, random access protocols for satellite and mobile radio networks, and from 1988, on admission and load control for ATM networks.

With E.G. Coffman and E.N. Gilbert (AT&T Laboratories, U.S.A.), computable models of the dynamic behaviour were investigated for certain cellular automata [63, 71]. With D.L. Parnas (McMaster University, Canada), work on reliability evaluation models and formal specification methods for safety critical software [80].

Associate member in the ESPRIT Basic Research Action BRA 3092 on Predictably Dependable Computing Systems (PDCS) since 1991, and, from 1995, in the “Design for Validation (DEVA)” ESPRIT Long Term Research Project 20072. Also representative member of Louvain university in the ESPRIT Network of Excellence on research in Distributed Computing Systems Architectures (CaberNet) and host for its EC Human Capital and Mobility programme (HCM) research fellow. (http://www.newcastle.research.ec.org/cabernet/)

Member of the European RACE Definition Phase project 2037 on Methods for Piecewise Development and Construction of Telecommunication Systems [50], and in the RACE initiating project 1022 on Asynchronous Time Division Techniques (ATM). Also expert for the European RACE training programme on Telecommunications (BRAIN), and in COST and DRIVE projects of the CEC.

Leader of the work package on safety justification of the European Framework research project CEMSIS : Cost Effective Modernisation of Systems Important to Safety, (http://www.cemsis.org/), 2000-2004.

Former editor of the PERFORMANCE EVALUATION Journal, from creation in 1970 to 1997, and of the SIAM Journal on Matrix Analysis.

International

Seminars on evaluation, verification and validation of safety digital instrumentation and control systems used in nuclear power plants.

EC assistance project on Enhancing the capacity and regulatory capabilities of the Chinese National Nuclear Safety Administration and its Technical Support Organisation, EuropeAid/134058/C/SER/CN. Beijing, October 1014 and September 2015.

 
Advisor to the Finnish Nuclear Safety Authority (http://www.stuk.fi/) for the licensing of the software of the new EPR Finnish reactor and for other digital control and instrumentation upgrade projects (2006-2008)

Expert missions for safety critical software used in nuclear applications for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA-UNO), Vienna. Co-editor of a state of the art report and of the safety guide on software important to safety in nuclear applications [8].

Expert for  EC PHARE and TACIS projects (transfer of methodology and support to nuclear safety authorities) and for the CEC DG XI TSO study on safety of European projects for large evolutionary Pressurized Water nuclear reactors and on the development of a common safety approach in EC countries.

Founder of the CEC NRWG Task Force of nuclear licensors on safety critical software (TFSCS) (http://europa.eu.int/comm/energy/nuclear/nuclearsafety.htm). (chair 1994-2007; secretary 2007- ) [9].

Member of the OCDE task force on nuclear safety critical software used in nuclear reactors .

Member of the United Kingdom Advisory Committee on Nuclear Safety for safety critical computer based systems since 1995.

Reviewer for the CEC DG XIII and DG III in European Research projects on information and communications technologies. Evaluator for the RACE programme in 1991 and 1993

Founding member of the IFIP Working Group WG 7.3 on Computer System Performance and Reliability Evaluation.

Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), and the American Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).

Education

Degree in Electrical Engineering (1961), Certificate in nuclear sciences (1961), and "Doctorat en Sciences Appliquées" (1973), from the "Université Catholique de Louvain", Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.