Farhad Mavaddat, retired professor at the Cheriton School of Computer Science, passed away peacefully on November 3, 2021, at the age of 80.
Mavaddat was born on May 13, 1941, in Tehran. He received a BS in electrical engineering in 1963 from Tehran University, a diploma of graduate studies in 1964 from Philips International Institute of Technological Studies in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and his DIC and PhD degrees in computing in 1968 from the Imperial College of Science and Technology in London.
While at the Philips Institute, he was a member of a group of researchers who designed and built a prototype computer using pre-fabricated electronic circuit modules produced by a pre-IC technology developed at Philips.
From 1968 to 1979, he was an assistant then associate professor at Aryamehr University of Technology in Tehran (now Sharif University of Technology), where he also served as chair of the mathematics and computer science department from 1975 to 1977. As a graduate of computer and engineering programs from Tehran University and Imperial College, he was one of the pioneers studying and teaching computer science in Iran.
Mavaddat’s research interests spanned many areas of computer science from the design of large-scale information systems, software systems and hardware and software verification, to system specification and codesign. He also worked on component-based software design and software-reuse, and was particularly interested in models of software components and computation models used in software composition. Over his career he authored and co-authored more than 70 publications.
Mavaddat mentored many students and colleagues in both Iran and Canada, some of whom have assumed research positions in industry and academic appointments in universities across the globe.
Full article with reactions from colleagues on Mavaddat's legacy on the computer science website.