Jump to content

Erol Gelenbe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erol Gelenbe
Born (1945-08-22) 22 August 1945 (age 81)[1]
EducationTED Ankara College
Middle East Technical University (B.Sc.)
New York University Tandon School of Engineering (M.Sc., Ph.D.)
Sorbonne University (Ph.D.)
Known forG-networks
Random neural network
AwardsChevalier de la Legion d'Honneur
Commander of the Ordre national du Mérite
Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic
Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy
Commander of the Order of the Crown of Belgium
Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland
METU Parlar Science Award
Mustafa Prize
IEEE Fellow
ACM Fellow
Scientific career
FieldsComputer science
Electrical engineering
Applied mathematics
WorkplacesUniversity of Liège
Paris-Sud 11 University
New Jersey Institute of Technology
Duke University
University of Central Florida
Imperial College
Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, Polish Academy of Sciences
Thesis Stochastic automata with structural restrictions  (1970)
Edward J. Smith
Jacques-Louis Lions
Doctoral students
Websitewww.ee.ic.ac.uk/gelenbe/
www.iitis.pl/en/person/segelenbe

Sami Erol Gelenbe (born 22 August 1945, Istanbul) is a Turkish and French computer scientist, electronic engineer and applied mathematician, known for inventing the Random neural network and his pioneering work in computer system and network performance.[3][4] His academic career spans several prestigious institutions and roles, including currently as Professor at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 2017,[5] and visitor positions at King's College London and the I3S Laboratory (CNRS, University of Côte d'Azur.[6]

A Fellow of several national academies and Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, Gelenbe chairs the Informatics Section of Academia Europaea since 2023.[7] Previous professorial tenures include the University of Liège (1974–79), University Paris-Saclay (1979–1986), University Paris Descartes (1986–1993), NJIT (1991–93), Duke University (1993–1998), the University of Central Florida (1998–2003), and Imperial College (2003–2020), where he served as the Dennis Gabor Professor and Head of Intelligent Systems and Networks.[8]

Biography

[edit]

Erol Gelenbe is the son of Maria Sacchet Gelenbe and Yusuf Âli Gelenbe, a descendant of the 18th-century Ottoman mathematician Gelenbevi Ismail Efendi and nephew of the Ottoman Sheyhulislam Mehmet Cemaleddin Efendi. Erol graduated from TED Ankara Koleji and the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, where he won the K.K. Clarke Research Award for his undergraduate thesis on "partial flux switching magnetic memory systems".[9] Awarded a Fulbright Fellowship, he completed a master's degree and Ph.D. at the Polytechnic University on "Stochastic automata with structural restrictions" under Prof. Edward J. Smith.[10]

Career

[edit]

Immediately after his PhD from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (now the New York University Tandon School of Engineering), he joined the University of Michigan in 1970 as an assistant professor. He was granted a leave of absence from the University of Michigan in 1972, and joined INRIA, France, where he founded the Modeling and Performance Evaluation of Computer Systems research group,[11] and was also a visiting associate professor at Paris 13 University. He was elected to a Chair (full professorship) in Computer Science at the University of Liège (Belgium) and appointed in 1973, joining Professor Danny Ribbens with whom he remained a life-long friend. He also continued as a research director (Directeur Scientifique) at INRIA and was awarded a Doctorat d'État ès Sciences Mathématiques (November 1973) from Sorbonne University, with a thesis on "Modèlisation des systèmes informatiques", under Professor Jacques-Louis Lions. He moved to the Paris-Sud 11 University in 1979, co-founded the Laboratoire de Recherche en Informatique and its Ph.D. Program, before joining Paris Descartes University in 1986 as founding director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Informatique.

Gelenbe was appointed New Jersey State Endowed Chair Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (1991–1993). He joined Duke University in 1993 and was appointed Nello L. Teer Chair Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering. In 1998 he moved to the University of Central Florida to create the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Harris Corporation Engineering Centre.[12][13] In 2003 he was offered the Dennis Gabor Chair at Imperial College London[14][15][16] as Head of Intelligent Systems and Networks. After Brexit, he became Professor at IITIS-PAN [17] of the Polish Academy of Sciences in 2017, and is a Foreign Fellow of the Polish Science Academy since 2013.[18] He retired from Imperial College in 2019 to continue as Professor at the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Coordinator or Principal Investigator of EU H2020 Research and Innovation Project SerIoT (2017–2021)[19] on the security of the Internet of Things, the EU H2020 Research and Innovation Programmes SDK4ED (2018–2020) and IoTAC (2020–2023), the EU Horizon Project DOSS (2023–2026) and the Marie-Curie Project SAILING (2026-2029). He served as SAPEA Advisor on Cybersecurity for the EU High Level Group (2017), Member of the Fake-News Study Group of the All-European Academies (ALLEA, 2020–2021),[20] leader of the Science Communication (Diffusion des Sciences) Study Group (2020–21) of the Belgian Royal Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, and Study Group leader on "From Research to Innovation in Europe" (2022)[21] of the Association of European Academies of Applied Sciences and Engineering.[22]

Research

[edit]

Performance evaluation and queueing theory

[edit]

Gelenbe's early research focused on the mathematical analysis of computer systems, communication networks, and distributed computing. Beginning in the late 1960s, he developed stochastic models for operating systems, memory management, virtual memory, checkpointing, software reliability, and packet-switching networks. His work contributed to the development of computer system performance evaluation by introducing analytical models for resource allocation, fault tolerance, response time, and system availability.[23]

During the 1970s and 1980s, he expanded this research to queueing theory and stochastic networks, publishing work on diffusion approximations, distributed databases, synchronization, parallel processing, manufacturing systems, and communication protocols. His research established mathematical methods for analyzing complex computer and communication systems under uncertainty.[24]

Random Neural Networks and G-networks

[edit]

In 1989, Gelenbe introduced the Random Neural Network (RNN), a probabilistic neural network model in which neurons exchange excitatory and inhibitory signals while admitting an exact product-form equilibrium solution. The model combines concepts from queueing theory, probability, and neural computation and has been applied to machine learning, pattern recognition, image processing, computer vision, optimization, signal processing, robotics, medical diagnosis, and wireless communications.[25]

He also developed G-networks, a class of queueing networks that extends classical queueing theory by incorporating positive and negative customers, triggers, resets, and other signalling mechanisms. G-networks provide analytical solutions for systems involving interacting processes and have been applied to communication networks, cloud computing, manufacturing, biological systems, and energy management.[26]

Computer networks and adaptive systems

[edit]

From the 1990s onward, Gelenbe's research increasingly focused on communication networks and distributed systems. He developed the Cognitive Packet Network (CPN), an adaptive routing architecture that uses reinforcement learning to select network paths according to quality-of-service objectives such as delay, reliability, security, and energy consumption.[27] His subsequent work examined self-aware and autonomic networks capable of adapting to changing network conditions without centralized control.

His research has also addressed quality-of-service management, bandwidth allocation, congestion control, wireless sensor networks, cloud computing, Internet of Things (IoT) systems, and software-defined networking, with particular emphasis on balancing performance, reliability, and energy efficiency.[28]

Energy-aware computing, cybersecurity and interdisciplinary applications

[edit]

In later years, Gelenbe's research expanded to energy-efficient computing and cyber-physical systems. He introduced Energy Packet Networks, a stochastic modelling framework for analysing energy flow in computing systems, with applications to energy harvesting, cloud computing, and sustainable network design.[29]

His work has also examined cybersecurity, including adaptive defence mechanisms, denial-of-service attacks, malware propagation, software reliability, and resilient communication networks. Beyond computer networking, he has published research in computational biology, gene regulatory networks[30], emergency evacuation modelling[31], autonomous search[32], disaster response[33], and intelligent transportation systems[34]

Awards and honours

[edit]

Honours

[edit]

National Academy Fellowships

[edit]


Elected Fellowships in Professional Societies

[edit]

[58]

Honorary Doctorates (Honoris Causa)

[edit]

Awards

[edit]

Selected bibliography

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 Gaster, Adrian (1977). The international authors and writers who's who. International Biographical Centre. ISBN 978-0-900332-45-6.
  2. ↑ Barria, Javier A. (2006). Communication networks and computer systems: a tribute to Professor Erol Gelenbe. Imperial College Press. pp. 1–8. ISBN 978-1-86094-659-2.
  3. ↑ "Erol Gelenbe Wins the 2008 Sigmetrics Achievement Award".
  4. ↑ "Pionnier de la modélisation des systèmes informatiques, ayant inspiré plusieurs prototypes industriels, E. Gelenbe est Fellow de l'ACM et l'IEEE, et lauréat de prix scientifiques en France, aux États-Unis et au Royaume-Uni, en Turquie et en Iran. Membre des Académies des Sciences de Hongrie, Pologne et Turquie, de l'Académie des Technologies (France) et de l'Academia Europaea, il est Docteur Honoris Causa des Universités de Liège, Istanbul-Bogazici et Rome II, et a formé plus de 78 docteurs. Il est Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, Commandeur de l'Ordre national du Mérite (France), Commandeur du Mérite d'Italie et Grand Officier de l'Ordre de l'Étoile d'Italie".
  5. ↑ "Prof. Sami Erol Gelenbe".
  6. ↑ "Academic Staff Abraham de Moivre CNRS Laboratory".
  7. ↑ "Informatics Section Chairperson".
  8. ↑ "Honouring the work of Professor Erol Gelenbe". 27 January 2016.
  9. ↑ Çaglayan, Professor Ufuk (26 October 2005). "Erol Gelenbe's Career and Contributions". In Yolum, pInar; Güngör, Tunga; Gürgen, Fikret; Özturan, Can (eds.). Computer and Information Sciences - ISCIS 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 3733. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. pp. 966–970. doi:10.1007/11569596_98. ISBN 978-3-540-29414-6.
  10. ↑ "Biographicon: Erol Gelenbe". Archived from the original on 3 October 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  11. ↑ "INRIA Alumni".
  12. ↑ "Departments of ECE and CS - Home".
  13. ↑ "Harris Corporation Engineering Center - UCF Campus Map, Orlando FL".
  14. ↑ "Honouring the work of Professor Erol Gelenbe". Imperial College London. 27 January 2016. Retrieved 2 November 2025.
  15. ↑ "Minutes of Senate Meeting" (PDF). Imperial College London. 13 December 2006. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  16. ↑ "Council: Staff Matters" (PDF). Imperial College London. 18 October 2002. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
  17. ↑ "Institute of Theoretical and Applied Informatics, Polish Academy of Sciences".
  18. ↑ "Prof. Sami Erol Gelenbe". IITIS. Retrieved 16 March 2019.
  19. ↑ "Getting more 'intelligent' about internet security".
  20. ↑ "Fact or Fake? Tackling Science Disinformation". 22 July 2020.
  21. ↑ "From Research to Innovation in Europe" (PDF).
  22. ↑ "Challenges for European Science and Technology driven innovation in Europe". euro-case.
  23. ↑ "This Computer Pioneer's Invention Made Zoom Possible - IEEE Spectrum". spectrum.ieee.org. Retrieved 4 August 2026.
  24. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol (1 October 1994). "G-networks: a unifying model for neural and queueing networks". Annals of Operations Research. 48 (5): 433–461. doi:10.1007/BF02033314. ISSN 1572-9338.
  25. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol (1 December 1989). "Random Neural Networks with Negative and Positive Signals and Product Form Solution". Neural Computation. 1 (4): 502–510. Bibcode:1989NeCom...1..502G. doi:10.1162/neco.1989.1.4.502.
  26. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol (1993). "G-networks by triggered customer movement". Journal of Applied Probability. 30 (3): 742–748. doi:10.2307/3214781. ISSN 0021-9002. JSTOR 3214781.
  27. ↑ Gelenbe, E.; Xu, Zhiguang; Seref, E. (1999). "Cognitive packet networks". Proceedings 11th International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence. pp. 47–54. Bibcode:1999tai..conf...10G. doi:10.1109/TAI.1999.809765. ISBN 0-7695-0456-6.
  28. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol; Nowak, Mateusz P.; Frohlich, Piotr; Fiolka, Jerzy; Checinski, Jacek (2022). Gelenbe, Erol; Jankovic, Marija; Kehagias, Dionysios; Marton, Anna; Vilmos, Andras (eds.). "Energy, QoS and Security Aware Edge Services". Security in Computer and Information Sciences. Communications in Computer and Information Science. 1596. Cham: Springer International Publishing: 102–117. doi:10.1007/978-3-031-09357-9_9. ISBN 978-3-031-09357-9.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  29. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol (2012). Rodrigues, Joel J. P. C.; Zhou, Liang; Chen, Min; Kailas, Aravind (eds.). "Energy Packet Networks: ICT Based Energy Allocation and Storage: (Invited Paper)". Green Communications and Networking. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering. 51. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer: 186–195. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-33368-2_16. ISBN 978-3-642-33368-2.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  30. ↑ Kim, Haseong; Gelenbe, Erol (3 December 2009). "Anomaly detection in gene expression via stochastic models of gene regulatory networks". BMC Genomics. 10 (3): S26. doi:10.1186/1471-2164-10-S3-S26. ISSN 1471-2164. PMC 2788379. PMID 19958490.
  31. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol; Bi, Huibo (2014). "Emergency Navigation without an Infrastructure". Sensors. 14 (8): 15142–15162. Bibcode:2014Senso..1415142G. doi:10.3390/s140815142. ISSN 1424-8220. PMC 4179086. PMID 25196014.
  32. ↑ Gelenbe, Erol (1999). "Autonomous Search for Information in an Unknown Environment". In Klusch, Matthias; Shehory, Onn M.; Weiss, Gerhard (eds.). Cooperative Information Agents III. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 1652. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. pp. 47–60. doi:10.1007/3-540-48414-0_3. ISBN 978-3-540-48414-1.
  33. ↑ Filippoupolitis, Avgoustinos; Gelenbe, Erol (2012). M’Sirdi, Nacer; Namaane, Aziz; Howlett, Robert J.; Jain, Lakhmi C. (eds.). "An Emergency Response System for Intelligent Buildings". Sustainability in Energy and Buildings. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies. 12. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer: 265–274. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-27509-8_22. ISBN 978-3-642-27509-8.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: periodical has ISBN (link)
  34. ↑ Bi, Huibo; Gelenbe, Erol; Chen, Yanyan (2020). "Incentive mechanism for collective coordination in an urban intelligent transportation system using G-networks". 2020 28th International Symposium on Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation of Computer and Telecommunication Systems (MASCOTS). pp. 1–8. Bibcode:2020masc.conf....9B. doi:10.1109/MASCOTS50786.2020.9285961. ISBN 978-1-7281-9238-3.
  35. ↑ On June 10th, 2024, at the Embassy of Poland in Paris, Professor Erol Gelenbe received the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of Poland. This prestigious award recognizes his outstanding contributions to science and academia.
  36. ↑ J'ai l'honneur de vous informer que, par arrêté royal du 28 octobre 2022, le grade de Commandeur de l'Ordre de la Couronne a été attribué au Professeur Erol GELENBE, Membre associé de l'Académie royale des Sciences, Lettres et Beaux-Arts de Belgique (PDF) (in French)
  37. ↑ "Remise de l'insigne de Commandeur de l'ordre national du Mérite à Erol GELENBE" (PDF).
  38. ↑ "Décret du 25 mai 2019 portant promotion et nomination" (in French). Journal officiel de la République française. Retrieved 26 May 2019.
  39. ↑ "Décret du 18 avril 2014 portant promotion et nomination" (in French). Journal officiel de la République française.
  40. ↑ "Sami Gelenbe - JORFSearch".
  41. ↑ "Grande Ufficiale dell'Ordine della Stella d'Italia (già Stella della solidarietà italiana)" (in Italian). Presidenza della Repubblica. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  42. ↑ "Commendatore Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana" (in Italian). Presidenza della Repubblica. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  43. ↑ "Erol Gelenbe". International Core Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Retrieved 16 May 2026.
  44. ↑ "Foreign Fellows Elected". Bilim Akademisi. Retrieved 10 September 2025.
  45. ↑ "Erol Gelenbe elected Foreign Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy". Academia Europaea. Retrieved 24 September 2025.
  46. ↑ "Honorary Fellows of the Islamic World Academy of Sciences, in Alphabetic Order".
  47. ↑ "Erol Gelenbe, Né à Istanbul, Turquie, le 22 août 1945. Membre associé de la Classe Technologie et Société. Élu associé le 7 mars 2015".
  48. ↑ "Foreign Members – Division IV". Polish Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 11 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  49. ↑ "Members of the Science Academy". Bilim Akademisi. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  50. ↑ "HAS General Assembly Elects New Honorary Members". Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  51. ↑ "Profile: Gelenbe, S. Erol". Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 20 March 2012. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  52. ↑ "Fellows: Erol Gelenbe". Academie des Technologies. Retrieved 12 November 2013.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
  53. ↑ "Member: Gelenbe, Erol". Academia Europaea. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  54. ↑ "Fellow Class of 1986". IEEE. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  55. ↑ "ACM Fellows: Erol Gelenbe". ACM. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  56. ↑ "Fellow: Gelenbe, Erol". International Federation of Information Processing. 27 March 2020.
  57. ↑ "Fellows: Erol Gelenbe".
  58. ↑ "Fellows: Erol Gelenbe".
  59. ↑ "Séance académique de remise des insignes de Docteur Honoris Causa" (in French). Universite de Liege. 30 March 2006. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  60. ↑ "DHC2006: Présentation de M. Erol GELENBE" (in French). Universite de Liege. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  61. ↑ "Fahri Doktora Unvanı".
  62. ↑ "IEEE TCSC Technical Award for Excellence 2025"..
  63. ↑ "Mustafa Prize".
  64. ↑ "IEEE ComSoc Member Erol Gelenbe Wins the in Memoriam Dennis Gabor Award | IEEE Communications Society". Archived from the original on 20 August 2014. Retrieved 17 March 2014.
  65. ↑ Chris Edwards (18 January 2011). "Profile: Professor Erol Gelenbe". IET. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  66. ↑ "The IET Achievement Medal Winners 2013". IET. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  67. ↑ "Honouring the work of Professor Erol Gelenbe". Imperial College. 27 January 2016. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  68. ↑ "Erol Gelenbe Wins the 2008 SIGMETRICS Achievement Award". ACM SIGMETRICS. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  69. ↑ "Prix France Telecom: Laureats de L'Annee 2012" (PDF) (in French). Académie des Sciences. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  70. ↑ "Bugüne Kadar Ödül Alanlar: Bilim Ödülü" (in Turkish). ODTÜ Prof.Dr.Mustafa N.PARLAR Eğitim ve Araştırma Vakfı. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
  71. ↑ "Holders of the IFIP Silver Core Award (1974–2010)". IFIP. Archived from the original on 12 November 2013. Retrieved 12 November 2013.
[edit]