Bernard P. Zeigler

Bernard Phillip Zeigler (born March 5, 1940) is a Canadian-born engineer, and Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Arizona. Zeigler is a notable figure in the field of advanced modelling and simulation, known for inventing Discrete Event System Specification (DEVS) in 1976. Zeigler is also Chief Scientist at RTSync, a company with expertise in the commercial applications of DEVS, and specializations in Model-Based System Engineering (MBSE), Predictive Analytics, and Machine Learning technology.

Background Zeigler was born in Montreal, Quebec and received his Bachelor of Science (BS) in engineering physics in 1962 from McGill University. He went on to receive his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (M.S.E.E.) in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1964, and his PhD in computer and communication science in 1969 from the University of Michigan under the supervision of John H. Holland.

In 1969, Zeigler began his academic career as an associate professor at the University of Michigan, where he held a faculty appointment until 1975 and again from 1980-1981. During this period, he was also a full professor at the Wayne State University in Detroit. From 1975 to 1980 he was faculty member of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. He has since held faculty appointments at Arizona State University (2005-2008), and The University of Arizona (1985-2010) as a Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Since its foundation in 2001, Zeigler has also acted as the Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Modeling and Simulation (ACIMS). As part of National Defense research, he also holds affiliations with the Center of Excellence in Command, Control, Communications, Computing and Intelligence (C4I Center) at George Mason University. Zeigler is also a founder, Advisory Board member, and the Chief Scientist at RTSync Corp, a company specializing in commercial applications of Zeigler's invention DEVS.

In 1995 Zeigler was awarded IEEE Fellow in recognition of his contributions to the theory of discrete-event simulation, and in 2000 he received the McLeod Founder's Award by the Society for Computer Simulation, also for his contributions to discrete event simulation. . "Hierarchical, modular discrete-event modelling in an object-oriented environment." Simulation. Vol 49 (5). p. 219-230 2006. "A Modular Verification Framework using Finite and Deterministic DEVS", with M.H. Hwang in: Proceedings of 2006 DEVS Symposium, pp. 57–65, Huntsville, Alabama, USA, 2009. "Reachability Graph of Finite and Deterministic DEVS Networks", with M.H. Hwang in: IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, Volume 6, Issue 3, 2009, pp. 454–467