He was awarded the Norbert Wiener Prize in Applied Mathematics in 1995, for his contributions in operator theory.

Born in Reșița, Romania, Foiaș studied mathematics at the University of Bucharest.

[3] He received his doctorate in 1962 from the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy (IMAR) under supervision of Miron Nicolescu.

Following his lecture in Helsinki, he defected to France, and then taught at the University of Paris — XI from 1979 to 1983.

[1] Together with Béla Szőkefalvi-Nagy, Foias proved the celebrated commutant lifting theorem.