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Thomas Colcombet

French theoretical computer scientist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ29021756
Source-derived summary

Thomas Colcombet (born March 6, 1975) is a French theoretical computer scientist known for settling major open problems on tree walking automata jointly with Mikołaj Bojańczyk. Colcombet is currently a CNRS Research Director at Paris Cité University.

Biography

Colcombet earned his undergraduate degree from École normale supérieure de Lyon (2000) and his doctorate from University of Rennes 1 (2004). Since 2004, he is a CNRS researcher, and a Research Director since 2016. He received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2010.

Besides his work on tree walking automata, Colcombet contributed to ω-automata, particularly to state complexity of Büchi automata, and to various topics in logic in computer science.

He was involved in the development of the videogame Liquid War.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Thomas Colcombet” is french theoretical computer scientist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Thomas, Colcombet and French, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1975, 2000, 2004, 2016—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1975-03-06. For this dossier, Thomas, Colcombet and French is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “french theoretical computer scientist” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q29021756. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1975, 2000, 2004 and 2016.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Thomas Colcombet”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Thomas Colcombet primary sources, Thomas Colcombet archive and Thomas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Thomas Colcombet” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.