IEEE CS Honors François Coallier of ÉTS for Contributions to International Standards Development

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 16 April 2015 — François Coallier, a professor and CIO at the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), has been named the recipient of IEEE Computer Society’s 2015 Hans Karlsson Award in recognition of his contributions to international standards development. 

Coallier has been involved in software and systems engineering standards development since 1984 when he joined the working group working on the first version of the IEEE Software Verification and Validation standards. He participated in the development of other IEEE software engineering standards before being appointed as Secretary of the Joint ISO and IEC subcommittee for Software and Systems Engineering Standards (ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7) in 1993.  He then became the international chairman of this subcommittee in 1997, a position he is still holding.

He was also the convener of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 Special Working Group for Technology Watch on international IT standardization from 2002 to 2007 and the Secretary of its study group on Web Services from 2002 to 2008.

Coallier was recognized "for leadership in the development of the theory and practice of international software and systems engineering standards."

ÉTS is one of Canada’s leading engineering schools, affiliated with the Université du Québec network. Coallier was the founding chair of ÉTS' Department of Software and IT Engineering from its creation in 2004 until 2010.

With more than two decades of industrial experience in one of Canada's largest companies, Coallier has held various engineering and managerial positions in engineering, quality engineering, IT procurement, IT infrastructure deployment and operation, and IT enterprise architecture management.

He is a Senior IEEE Member, an IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Member, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Established by the Computer Society in 1992 in memory of Hans Karlsson, father of the IEEE 1301 family of standards, the award comes with a plaque and $2,000 honorarium. It is presented in recognition of outstanding skills and diplomacy, team facilitation and joint achievement, in the promotion of computer standards where individual aspirations, corporate competition, and organizational rivalry could otherwise be counter to society's benefit.

Learn more about the IEEE Computer Society awards.