Marcel Linsman

Born June 22, 1912, Liege, Belgium; died April 19, 1989, Belgium; early promoter of IFIP, computer scientist and computer developer.

Education: BS, mathematical sciences, Univ. Liege, 1934; PhD, Univ. Liege, 1937.

Professional Experience: Univ. Liege: assistant professor, 1938-1964, professor, 1964-1989.

Honors and Awards: IFIP Silver Core Award, 1974.

In 1943, Linsman became interested in numerical calculation and recognized immediately the electronic possibilities. A grant by the Belgian research organization I.R.S.I.A. gave him an opportunity to work at Harvard University during the school year 1947-1948, where he became a member of Howard Aiken's development group. [During this period the Harvard laboratory was building the Mark III, which eventually was installed at the Naval Surface Weapons Center at Dahlgren, Va.] From 1951 to 1955, he managed the development of one of the earliest European electronic computers, known as Machine I.R.S.I.A. His interest then took him into nonnumerical applications of the computer. Starting with automatic language translation, he initiated many projects, including teaching informatics and medical applications. Throughout his career he was a recipient of many awards.

Within IFIP, he was present from the first Council meeting in Rome in 1971, representing the Belgium member society. He was also active in the Technical Committee on Education (TC-3). During the time IFIP was based in Belgium, 1962 through 1967, he served as IFIP assistant secretary and handled all legal matters for the federation. In 1974 he was among the first group to receive the IFIP Silver Core Award.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Biographical

Zemanek, Heinz, "Marcel Linsman, 1912-1989," IFIP Newsletter, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1989, p. 8.