-- Born in Milan (Italy), 1923
-- Electronic Engineering at EPUL (Lausanne, Switzerland), 1946
-- Ph.D in Mathematical Sciences at ETH (Zürich, Switzerland), 1952
-- "Honoris causa" Degree in Computer Science, University of Milan, 1994
First appointment at University of Rome "La Sapienza" : 1974.
Research interests : Theory of computing, Constructive Mathematics, Combinatory Logic, Lambda-Calculus, Semantics and Implementation of Functional Programming Languages.
Before joining "La Sapienza", he was full time researcher at the INAC-CNR
in Rome, from 1953 to 68, doing research on Turing machines and on
Structured Programming. From 1959 to 69 he taught Numerical Analysis,
Programming Techniques and Mathematical Logic
at the Universities of Pisa and Rome.
In 1970 he joined the University of Turin to cover the first professorship
assigned in Italy in Computer Science.
His research activity began with the construction of the first compiler
written in its own language. Then his studies on Turing machines and Von
Neumann machines ended with a theorem (in collaboration with Jacopini)
of great interest for the development of Structured Programming.
The investigations on lambda-calculus and combinatory logic were centered
on the notion of normal form, and a theorem, very important for the
semantics of programming languages, was delivered. The more recent
research is addressed to the implementation of a pure functional
programming system, based on the discovery that not only data and
results may be conveniently represented by normal forms, but also
functions and functionals.
He is a member of IFIP WG 2.2 on concept formation and its formalization and of IFIP WG 2.8 on functional programming.
He is member of the Editorial Board of Theoretical Computer Science
and of the ACADEMIA EUROPAEA (Computing section).
He was the contact person of the European WG BRA 7232 (GENTZEN)
Common Foundations of Functional and Logic Programming.
He is local coordinator (Rome University) of the European Project
Human Capital and Mobility on "Typed Lambda Calculus" .
He is member of the Council of AILA (Associazione Italiana Logica e
sue Applicazioni) and of the Council of EACSL (European Association of
Computer Science Logic).
A special issue of TCS was dedicated to him, on the occasion
of his 70th birthday.