Jacques Cohen is a professor emeritus of computer science and of the Volen National Center for Complex Systems at Brandeis University.
His doctoral dissertation involved energy minimization using Raleigh-Ritz methods to determine Fourier series coefficients defining shapes of buckling columns made of thin-walled plates.
This particular topic enabled Cohen to learn a great deal of assembly language programming and the solution of systems of non-linear equations resulting from the energy minimization process.
After graduating from Illinois, Cohen returned to Brazil and practiced programming on the Burroughs 205, an early electronic computer.
After his time in France, Cohen was offered a research position in MIT’s Civil Engineering department, which he held for one year.
As the founder of the Computer Science Department at Brandeis University, Cohen held the position of chair for almost twelve years, beginning in the early 1980s.