Jim Tice Ellis

Co-creator of Usenet, Ellis changed how people communicate online. It was 1979 when Ellis and a fellow Duke University student, Tom Truscott, decided to use e-mail programs and university computers to establish...

John Edward Warnock

Co-founder of Adobe Systems Inc., Warnock pioneered the development of graphics, publishing, Web, and electronic document technologies that revolutionized the field of publishing and visual communications. He served as President of Adobe...

John Impagliazzo

Noted IT historian, author, and Professor Emeritus of computing sciences at Hofstra University, Impagliazzo has supported educational computing activities for decades. His accomplishments include contributing to model computing and engineering curricula, publishing...

Reid Garrett Hoffman

Co-founder of LinkedIn, a business-oriented social network used primarily for professional networking, Hoffman is best known as one of Silicon Valley's most influential entrepreneurs and investors. He was born in Palo Alto,...

David M. Young

Founder of the Center for Numerical Analysis at The University of Texas at Austin, Young was also known for establishing the Successive Overrelaxation (SOR) method. Professor Young's career and many contributions almost exactly...

Robert Endre Tarjan

Renowned for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures, Tarjan is an American computer scientist. He discovered several important graph algorithms, including Tarjan's off-line least common ancestors...

Gerald D. Cohen

CEO and founder of Information Builders, Cohen started an early enterprise database software company.

Tom van Vleck

Co-author of the first email program for the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), one of the first time-sharing operating systems, van Vleck is an American computer software engineer. He worked at MIT on...

Lawrence J. Shoenberg

Noted for serving as head of three sections of ADAPSO—Software Products, Professional Services, and Information Systems Integration—Shoenberg also spent 20 years on the ADAPSO board and served a term as its chair....

Arthur Walter Burks

Contributor to the design of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, Burks served as a senior engineer on the project in the 1940s. Decades later, Burks and his wife Alice...

Steven R. Hetzler

Initiator and namer of iSCSI within IBM Research, Hetzler is recognized for his role in developing an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. He initiated work on...

Marcel Joseph Vogel

Inventor of the magnetic coating for the IBM 24" hard disk drive systems still in use, Vogel worked as a research scientist at the IBM San Jose Research Center for 27 years....

Hans Christian Ørsted

Discoverer that electric currents create magnetic fields, Ørsted made an important contribution to our understanding of electromagnetism. He shaped post-Kantian philosophy and advances in science throughout the late 19th century. He was...

Edward Albert Feigenbaum

Known as the "father of expert systems," Feigenbaum is a computer scientist working in the field of artificial intelligence. Feigenbaum completed his undergraduate degree, and a Ph.D., at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now...

Judith (Judy) L. Estrin

Leader of the team that developed one of the first commercial local area network systems, Z-net, Estrin is an American business executive and technology entrepreneur who co-founded seven companies with Bill Carrico. She...

William (Danny) Daniel Hillis

Co-founder of Thinking Machines Corporation, Hillis developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer he designed at MIT. He also co-founded the Long Now Foundation, Applied Minds, and Metaweb, and authored The Pattern...

Robert (Bob) C. Baron

Program Manager for the Mariner II (Venus) and the Mariner IV (Mars) onboard space computers, Baron spent over 25 years as an engineer, entrepreneur, and executive in the computer industry. A historian,...

Linus Benedict Torvalds

Creator of the Linux kernel and key catalyst of the open source movement, Torvalds initiated one of the most influential software projects in history.

Cheryl L. Shavers

Appointed Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology in the Clinton Administration, Shavers served in that role from 1999 to 2001, representing one of the most senior positions in U.S. technology policy. Her...

Herbert Reuben Grosch

Formulator of Grosch's Law, the landmark aphorism about computer economy and speed, Grosch was one of the earliest and most colorful figures in computer science. Born in Canada, he moved to the United...