Thomas Sturm

Thomas Sturm is a CNRS Research Director at LORIA in Nancy, France, and affiliated with the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. He is a faculty member (Privatdozent) in the Department of Computer Science at Saarland University and contributes to the Saarland Informatics Campus. His work bridges symbolic computation, logic, and applications in systems biology and engineering.

Education:

• Habilitation in Informatics, Universität Passau, Germany, 2005
• Dr. rer. nat. (Ph.D.), Universität Passau, Germany, 2000

Sturm's research focuses on exact and efficient computation, computer algebra, logic, and formal reasoning. Key areas include quantifier elimination, decision procedures, tropical geometry, and their application to chemical reaction networks and systems biology. He develops methods used in SMT solving and mathematical biology. His work emphasizes algorithmic reduction of biological models with multiple time scales and symbolic analysis of dynamical systems.

His recent publications reflect a strong trend in applying symbolic computation to biological networks, particularly using real algebraic geometry, tropical methods, and logic-based approaches to analyze steady states, binomiality, and toricity in reaction systems. He integrates formal reasoning with model reduction and conservation laws, contributing to both theoretical foundations and practical software tools.

Scientific Awards:

• Open Source Excellence Award by SourceForge for REDUCE/Redlog

Sturm actively advises and collaborates with researchers in interdisciplinary projects. He has led major grants such as SYMBIONT (ANR/DFG) and SC² (EU H2020), involving teams across Europe. He is Editor-in-Chief of Mathematics in Computer Science (Springer) and associate editor of the Journal of Symbolic Computation. His leadership extends to software development, including Redlog and ODEbase, which support symbolic reasoning and biomodel sharing.

Labs and Teams: He leads or has led research groups in arithmetic reasoning at MPI Informatics and participates in the Automation of Logic department. He is central to the SC² community, fostering collaboration between satisfiability checking and symbolic computation.