In memory of Erik Sandewall
It is with great sadness we announce that AFSR’s former president, professor Erik Sandewall, died on April 5, 2024.
Erik Sandewall made pioneering contributions to global research in computer science and artificial intelligence. After studies and early research at Uppsala University, Stanford AI
laboratory and the MIT AI laboratory, Erik Sandewall became Sweden’s first professor in computer science at Linköping university in 1975. He remained with Linköping University
for almost fifty years and held at the time of his death a position as professor emeritus. Erik Sandewall’s interest in France and the French research community was deepened through his year as a visiting researcher at the LAAS laboratory in Toulouse, France, 1993-94.
He became a member of the board of directors of AFSR, the Swedish-French Research Association, in the spring of 1998. He was later the same year elected president of the association, a position he held until the end of 2015.
Erik Sandewall led the operations of AFSR with commitment and great wisdom. Under his leadership a series of projects, well adapted to the association's resources, were carried out which in various ways contributed to the development and deepening of French-Swedish cooperation in research and technical development.
Erik Sandewall was Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur and Doctor Honoris Causa at Université Paul Sabatier, Toulouse.
Stockholm/Paris, April 11 2024
Comité Directeur de l’AFSR