Frank Tompa
May 2013 Honorary Degree Recipient
Doctor of Laws (honoris causa)
For nearly 40 years, Dr. Tompa has brought his curiosity and gifts to the University of Waterloo. His influence is felt within the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science and well beyond.
The research that Dr. Tompa and Dr. Gaston Gonnet carried out for a searchable Oxford English Dictionary became the foundation for a business called OpenText. Dr. Tompa was a founder of the company, which today has some 5,000 employees and offices around the globe. In addition to the contributions he made to OpenText, Dr. Tompa has had the opportunity to engage in research with Microsoft Research and other organizations.
Dr. Tompa is co-author of the 2011 book Communicating with XML and papers in journals including Machine Learning and Information Sciences.ĚýĚý
His service has included membership on Canada’s Association of I.T. Professionals’ Computer Science Accreditation Council and the board of the Computing Research Association. He is a lead investigator with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Business Intelligence Network.
Dr. Tompa, whom the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada called a “leader in Canadian science,” is a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and a recipient of the University of Waterloo’s Award of Excellence in Graduate Supervision.