Thomas Colcombet

Thomas Colcombet (born March 6, 1975) is a French theoretical computer scientist known for settling major open problems on tree walking automata^[1][2] jointly with Mikołaj Bojańczyk. Colcombet is currently a CNRS Research Director at Paris Diderot University.

Thomas Colcombet
Born	(1975-03-06) March 6, 1975 (age 50)
Alma mater	University of Rennes 1
Known for	tree walking automata, Liquid War
Awards	Bronze medal of the CNRS (2010)
Scientific career
Fields	Theoretical Computer Science Automata theory
Institutions	Paris Diderot University
Doctoral advisor	Didier Caucal

Biography

Colcombet earned his undergraduate degree from École normale supérieure de Lyon (2000) and his doctorate from University of Rennes 1 (2004). Since 2004, he is a CNRS researcher, and a Research Director since 2016. He received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2010.

Besides his work on tree walking automata, Colcombet contributed to ω-automata,^[3] particularly to state complexity of Büchi automata,^[4] and to various topics in logic in computer science.

He was involved in the development of the videogame Liquid War.