The Department of Computer Science mourns the death of Professor Dr. Jacques Loeckx

The Department of Computer Science mourns the death of Professor Dr. Jacques Loeckx, who died on January 4, 2020 in Cologne, where he had lived since his retirement in 1997.

Jacques Loeckx studied engineering at the Université Libre in his home city of Brussels and received his doctorate from the Université Catholique in Leuven. He began his professional career in industry, first in Antwerp and then in Brussels. During this time, the honorary professor was already a lecturer for a long time at the Technical Hogeschool in Eindhoven (Netherlands). After fourteen years, he finally turned his attention entirely to science and became a university lecturer at the Technical Hogeschool Twente (Netherlands). On January 1, 1972, he accepted the offer of a new chair for computer science at Saarland University, which he held until his retirement on March 31, 1997. With his innovative research fields – semantics of programming languages and especially program verification – he has gained high international reputation and contributed significantly to the outstanding profile of computer science in Saarbrücken Prof. Loeckx has published numerous papers, including the monographs “Algorithm Theory” (1976), “The Foundations of Program Verifications” with Kurt Sieber (1984), “Fundamentals of Programming Languages” with Kurt Mehlhorn and Reinhard Wilhelm (1986) and “Specification of Abstract Data Types” with Hans-Dieter Ehrich and Markus Wolf (1996). In the context of several research projects, he worked closely with renowned colleagues, especially at the Technical University of Munich and the University of Karlsruhe. Together with Prof. Klaus Indermark (Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen), he repeatedly organized an internationally highly regarded workshop on the semantics of programming languages in Bad Honnef between 1980 and 1990. During his time in Saarbrücken, Professor Loeckx also took on various tasks in academic self-administration, was chairman of the examination office for computer science for many years, and was vice dean of the department “Applied Mathematics and Computer Science” between 1977 and 1979.

For many years Jacques Loeckx was a committed professor and an endearing person. The faculty will keep him in lasting memory.