Gérard Philippe Berry is a French computer scientist

Computer scientist

A computer scientist is a scientist who has acquired knowledge of computer science, the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and their application in computer systems....

, member of French Academy of Sciences

French Academy of Sciences

The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research...

 (Académie des sciences), French Academy of Technologies

French Academy of Technologies

The French Academy of Technologies is a learned society, founded in 2000, with an emphasis on technology. It is the newest of French academies...

 (Académie des technologies), and Academia Europaea

Academia Europaea

Academia Europæa is a European non-governmental scientific academy founded in 1988. Its members are scientists and scholars who collectively aim to promote learning, education and research. It publishes European Review through Cambridge Journals....

. He was the Chief Scientist Officer of Esterel Technologies

Esterel Technologies

Esterel Technologies is a supplier of model-based design, validation, and code generation tools for safety-critical software and hardware applications. Esterel’s tools create formal specifications that produce control designs code in software and/or hardware....

 from 2000 to 2009. He held the 2007-2008 yearly Liliane Bettencourt chair of Technological Innovation at the Collège de France

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

. He is currently Director of Research at INRIA and is holding the 2009-2010 yearly Informatics and Digital Sciences chair at the Collège de France

Collège de France

The Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Écoles...

. Berry's work, which spans over more than 30 years, brought important contributions to three main fields:

• lambda calculus
  Lambda calculus
  In mathematical logic and computer science, lambda calculus, also written as λ-calculus, is a formal system for function definition, function application and recursion. The portion of lambda calculus relevant to computation is now called the untyped lambda calculus...
  
   and functional programming
  Functional programming
  In computer science, functional programming is a programming paradigm that treats computation as the evaluation of mathematical functions and avoids state and mutable data. It emphasizes the application of functions, in contrast to the imperative programming style, which emphasizes changes in state...
  
  
• parallel and real-time
  Real-time computing
  In computer science, real-time computing , or reactive computing, is the study of hardware and software systems that are subject to a "real-time constraint"— e.g. operational deadlines from event to system response. Real-time programs must guarantee response within strict time constraints...
  
   programming language
  Programming language
  A programming language is an artificial language designed to communicate instructions to a machine, particularly a computer. Programming languages can be used to create programs that control the behavior of a machine and/or to express algorithms precisely....
  
  s
• design automation
  Electronic design automation
  Electronic design automation is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as printed circuit boards and integrated circuits...
  
   for synchronous digital circuit
  Synchronous circuit
  A synchronous circuit is a digital circuit in which the parts are synchronized by a clock signal.In an ideal synchronous circuit, every change in the logical levels of its storage components is simultaneous. These transitions follow the level change of a special signal called the clock...
  
  s

Berry is best known as the conceptor of the Esterel

Esterel

Esterel is a synchronous programming language for the development of complex reactive systems. The imperative programming style of Esterel allows the simple expression of parallelism and preemption...

programming language.