David Michael Ungar

Co-creator of the Self programming language, Ungar developed the prototype-based, object-oriented language with Randall Smith in 1986 while working at Xerox PARC. He described himself as "an out-of-the-box thinker who enjoys the...

Karen Spärck Jones

Pioneer of inverse document frequency (IDF) weighting in information retrieval, Spärck Jones introduced a concept now used in most search engines today. A British computer scientist, she was born in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England...

Stephen (Steve) Walker

Member of the team that developed ARPAnet, the breakthrough packet switching system that evolved into the Internet, Walker is an American engineer who is nationally recognized for his pioneering work on the...

Frederick (Fred) Jacob Damerau

Pioneer in natural language processing and data mining, Damerau spent over four decades at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York. Born in Parma, Ohio, son of the...

Izrael Abraham Staffel

Inventor of a calculating machine able to add, subtract, divide, multiply, and obtain a square root, Staffel was a Polish inventor, watchmaker, mechanic, and designer of calculating machines, born in 1814 in...

Joseph Smagorinsky

Among the earliest researchers who sought to exploit new methods of numerical weather prediction to extend forecasting past one or two days, Smagorinsky was also the first Director of the National Oceanic...

Charles Kuen Kao

Pioneer in the development and use of fiber optics in telecommunications, Kao is known as the "Godfather of Broadband," "Father of Fiber Optics," and "Father of Fiber Optic Communications." He was jointly...

Thomas (Tom) M. Bradicich

Leader and prime mover behind IBM's xSeries architectures, Bradicich is a 2006 IBM Fellow—the highest honor a scientist, engineer, or programmer at IBM can achieve. He has served as Vice President of...

Frederick M. Hoar

A Silicon Valley public relations and marketing executive legend, Hoar died January 2 after a three-year bout with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. He was 77. Hoar was one of Silicon Valley's most visible public...

Srini Devadas

Co-inventor of silicon Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and co-founder of Verayo, a company focused on improving the security of computer hardware, Devadas has served as the Edwin Sibley Webster Professor of Electrical...

George W. Platzman

One of the founders of modern meteorology, Platzman helped formulate the first weather forecast by computer, carried out in 1950 on the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC). He pioneered the field...

Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier

Best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations, Fourier left an unfinished work on determinate equations which was edited by Claude-Louis...

Russell Lincoln Ackoff

Recognized as the "Father of Operations Research" for helping establish one of the world's first Departments of Operations Research, Ackoff is also celebrated internationally as a pragmatic academic, systems thinker, and prolific...

Howard (Ward) G. Cunningham

Programmer and inventor of the wiki, Cunningham started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994 and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham & Cunningham (commonly known by its domain...

Leslie Lamport

Known for his seminal work in distributed systems and as the initial developer of LaTeX, Lamport is a prominent computer scientist and mathematician. A graduate of the Bronx High School of Science, he...

Roger Michael Needham

Head of Cambridge University Computing Laboratory and designer of influential cryptography and security systems, Needham was a major figure in computer science. A Mathematics and Philosophy graduate from Cambridge University in the...

Simon Phipps

Instrumental in IBM's involvement in the Java programming language, Phipps founded IBM's Java Technology Center. A computer scientist and web and open source advocate, he left IBM for Sun Microsystems in 2000,...

Boris N Malinovsky

Designer of early Soviet computers and control systems, Malinovsky worked with noted Russian computer pioneer Lebedev in the design of early Soviet computers. In 1955–1958, he designed a specialized computer for ground-based...

Charles M. Sporck

Former CEO of National Semiconductor, Sporck led one of the most influential semiconductor companies of its era.

David Harold Bailey

Writer of the computer program that enabled the discovery of the Bailey–Borwein–Plouffe formula for computing digits of pi, Bailey is a mathematician and computer scientist. He received his B.S. degree in Mathematics...