Education
He studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology from 1967-1973.
He studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology from 1967-1973.
He was a student in Zürich of East. Specker and H. Läuchli in mathematical logic, (Diploma in Mathematics and Physics 1971, Doctor mathsc in 1974), of B. Eckmann (Topology and Geometry) and V. Strassen (Algorithmics), and in Warsaw of A. Mostowski and West. Marek, where he spent 1972 as an exchange student. Makowsky held visiting positions at Banach Center in Warsaw (Poland), Stanford University (United States of America), Simon Fraser University (Canada), University of Florence (Italy), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (United States of America), Lausanne University and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zurich (Switzerland). He held regular positions at the Free University of Berlin and the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel) where he is a full professor
Among his various contributions it is worth mentioning:
In model theory, the solution of two open problems in categoricity theory and his study of logics with various interpolation and compactness properties (partially with South Shelah and J Stavi).
In database theory, the first undecidability result of the consequence problem for database dependencies (with A Chandra and H Lewis), his work unifying the Entity-Relationship model and the relational model of databases (with V Markowitz), and his work on Boyce Codd Normal Form (with EV Ravve). In logic programming, his fundamental studies of Horn formulas and their complexity (partially with B Mahr and A Itai)
In graph algorithms, his unifying approach to tree-width and clique-width via model theory, leading to a general theory of graph polynomials and their definability in various logical formalisms (partially with I Averbouch, B Courcelle, B Godlin, T Kotek, U Rotics and B Zilber).
During his presidency he established the EACSL Ackermann Award for outstanding Doctor of Philosophy theses in computer science logic. In 2008, an event dedicated to Makowsky on his 60th birthday was co-located with the annual meeting of the EACSL.
Makowsky was a founding member of the European Association of Computer Science Logic in 1992, its vice-president (2002-2004) and president (2004-2009), and was a member of EACSL"s executive council till 2014.