Maplesoft Blogger Profile: Laurent Bernardin

Maplesoft Employee

Vice-President of Research and Development

Laurent Bernardin is the Vice-President of Research and Development as well as Chief Scientist at Maplesoft, responsible for the corporate technology vision as well as all product development.

A contributor to the Maple project for 14 years, Laurent has held increasingly senior positions at Maplesoft since joining the company full-time in 1999, successfully delivering over 30 product releases and leading the R&D team to achievements such as the breakthrough release of Maple 10. Under his tenure, the R&D department at Maplesoft has grown from 33 to over 60 people today.

Laurent is a recognized authority in the area of scientific computation and has published numerous papers on mathematical algorithms as well as parallel and distributed computation. Laurent is an active member of the research community, serving on the editorial board of the Journal for Symbolic Computing and is regularly asked to serve on program committee or act as referee for prominent conferences in the field, such as ISSAC (International Symposium on Symbolic and Algebraic Computing), ACA (Applications of Computer Algebra), IAMC (Internet Accessible Mathematical Computations) and CASC (Computer Algebra and Scientific Computing). Frequent speaking engagements and invited lectures allow Laurent to share his thoughts on Maple and mathematical computation systems with audiences at top research institutions and companies around the world. In 2004, Laurent accepted the NSERC Synergy Award on behalf of Maplesoft, recognizing our long-term partnership with the University of Waterloo. Laurent also serves on the W3C Math Working Group as well as on the Numeric Math Consortium, defining industry standards such as the MathML markup language for mathematical expressions.

Prior to joining Maplesoft, Laurent held research and IT positions at ETH Zurich, ran a software consulting business and co-founded an e-commerce startup company.

Laurent holds a PhD (Dr. sc. tech.) in Computer Science from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, focusing on algorithms for Symbolic Computation as well as an engineering degree (Dipl. Ing. ETH), also from ETH Zurich.

Posts by Laurent Bernardin

Maplesoft Employee

What’s Next in Analytical Computing?

February 03 2010 by laurent 40

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Ten years ago, I wrote an article for Dr. Dobb’s Journal on Analytical Computing. Many of the techniques I discussed there, like hybrid symbolic-numeric computing and automated code generation have since revealed themselves as indispensable tools for engineering. Others, like exact computing, have yet to reveal their potential.

 A lot has happened since that article, of course, and it’s about time I share some thoughts about what the current challenges are. There are three areas that are top of my mind and that I would like to discuss here: Parallel computing, collaborative software and user interface abstractions.

Maplesoft Employee

Does Modelica matter?

May 07 2009 by laurent 40

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Modelica is an open language for (lumped parameter) modeling and simulation and is generating a growing following, especially in Europe. Modelica is also at the heart of simulation tools like MapleSim. We are generally not making a big deal of that fact and as a result we have a regular stream of actual and potential customers asking us why we are not more vocal about our use of Modelica. Do we not believe in open standards? Do we think Modelica is not that important after all?

For almost 20 years, Math education has been recognized as the first killer application for symbolic computing. By taking out the grunt work of manipulating equations, calculating integrals and performing matrix computations with symbolic entries, systems such as Maple have transformed the math classroom.

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