Biography
Gilles Dowek was born on December 20, 1966, in Paris. In 1991, he completed his doctorate at the University of Paris 7 with a thesis titled Automatic Proving in the Calculus of Constructions.
From 2002 to 2010, he taught at the École polytechnique. After that, he worked as a researcher at INRIA, which is part of the Formal Methods laboratory at the École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay. He also taught as a professor at this institution until his death.
In 2007, he received the Grand Prix de philosophie de l'Académie française for his book The Metamorphoses of Calculus: An astonishing history of mathematics.
Gilles Dowek passed away in Paris on July 21, 2025, due to cancer at the age of 58.
Personal life
Dowek was gay and led an organization that supports the rights of gay and transgender people related to moving to a new country and living there.