The Beginnings of WIA/CIAA

This history was compiled by
Mary Chen
(mmlchen@gmail.com)
from the papers and emails of the late Derick Wood

1990

  • Grail begins! J.H. Johnson and D. Wood release version 0.5

1993

  • D. Raymond and D. Wood release Grail versions 0.8 to 1.3

1994

  • Raymond/Wood release Grail versions 2.0 to 2.2
  • Wood receives a 3-year strategic NSERC grant for "Grail: symbolic manipulation of language theory objects" This grant provides, in part, crucial support for both WIA '96 and WIA '97

1995

  • Raymond/Wood release Grail 2.3 and 2.4
  • Raymond starts as Grail Project Manager
  • Raymond/Wood initiate plans for WIA '96
  • WIA steering committee: D. Wood (Founding Chair), S. Margolis, D. Maurel, S. Yu

1996

  • Raymond/Wood release Grail 2.5; Raymond resigns as Grail Project Manager
  • WIA '96 held Aug 29-31 at University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
  • Proceedings published in Springer-Verlag LNCS #1260
  • Wood elected chair of WIA steering committee

1997

  • WIA '97 held Sep 18-20 at University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada
  • Proceedings published in Springer-Verlag LNCS #1436 and selected papers in TCS 231-1

1998

  • WIA '98 held Sep 17-19 at University of Rouen, Rouen, France
  • Proceedings published in Springer-Verlag LNCS #1660 and selected papers in TCS 267-1-1
  • Jean-Marc Champarnaud invited to join WIA steering committee

1999

  • WIA '99 held Jul 15-17 at University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
  • Proceedings published in Springer-Verlag LNCS #2214
  • Workshop name "WIA '00" changed to "CIAA 2000"

Dedication: To Derick Wood.
Derick resigned from the Program Committee and the Steering Committee in 2006 and 2008, respectively, for health reasons.

Acknowledgements: My gratitude and appreciation are due to: Darrell Raymond for his valuable suggestions and feedback, and how Derick had enjoyed immensely not only the developments of theory and application being implemented that led to the birth of WIA/CIAA but also their collaboration all these years; H. Lutfiyya, CS Chair, UWO, for a copy of NSERC application form; and the Department and the System Group, CSE, HKUST, for the website, the link and all Derick’s archived files.