Harry Wexler

A pioneer in the use of computers for weather prediction and modification, Wexler was an American meteorologist who attended Harvard University, and in 1939 was awarded a Ph.D. in meteorology from the...

Kenneth (Ken) H. Perlin

Developer of Perlin noise and innovative computer-user interfaces such as zooming user interfaces, Perlin is one of the most respected figures in the field of computer graphics for his work both in...

Allessandro Volta

Inventor of the battery in 1800 and a remotely operated pistol that was a significant forerunner of the telegraph, Volta transformed the understanding of electricity. He was born in Como, Italy, and taught...

Daniel A. Hitchcock

Leader of the effort to expand the Magnetic Fusion Energy Computing Center into NERSC, widely regarded as the best-managed High Performance Computing Center in the world, Hitchcock joined the Department of Energy...

Gregory Bateson

A pioneer in extending systems theory and cybernetics to the social and behavioral sciences, Bateson had a natural ability to recognize order and pattern in the universe. In the 1940s he helped...

Jie Liu

Leader of Microsoft Research's Sensing and Energy Research Group (SERG), Liu has conducted fundamental and applied research in sensing and energy-efficient computing with applications in sensor networks, data centers, and mobile computing....

Johannes Georg Bednorz

Co-discoverer, with K. Alex Müller, of high-temperature superconductivity in ceramics, Bednorz shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics for this breakthrough. He was born in Neuenkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany to elementary-school teacher...

Paul Alexander Desmond DeMaine

A leading figure in the early development of computer-based automatic indexing and information retrieval and one of the founders of academic computer science in the 1960s, DeMaine was born in South Africa...

Edward Seidel

Co-founder of the Cactus Framework, an open-source, problem-solving environment designed for scientists and engineers, Seidel is a career computer scientist and physicist recognized for a number of awards for his work. His...

Robert Mano Fano

Known principally for his work in information theory and the invention of Shannon-Fano coding, Fano was a computer scientist and professor emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of...

Thelma Estrin

One of the first to apply computer technology to healthcare and medical research, Estrin was a computer scientist and engineer who did pioneering work in the fields of expert systems and biomedical...

Ruzena Bajcsy

Founding director of the University of Pennsylvania's General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) Laboratory, Bajcsy is an American engineer and computer scientist specializing in robotics. She also served as head of...

James Henry Wakelin, Jr.

Involved with B.F. Goodrich's first use of modern computers, Wakelin was a United States physicist, oceanographer, and businessman who served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Research and Development) from 1959 to...

Alfred Grill

Primary inventor of the low-k and ultralow-k SiCOH and porous pSiCOH insulators that replaced silicon dioxide as interconnect dielectrics for improved chip performance, Grill is an expert in materials science and engineering...

Valentin Fyodorovich Turchin

Developer of the Refal programming language, the theory of metasystem transitions, and the notion of supercompilation, Turchin made foundational contributions to computer science and cybernetics. The philosophical core of Turchin's scientific work was...

Tsutomu Shimomura

Best known for his contributions to lattice gas automata and digital security research, Shimomura has made significant contributions to both computational physics and computer security. In the fall of 1984 he joined the...

Phaedon Avouris

Innovator of the potential for carbon nanotubes to compete with the long-established silicon transistor for important information technology applications, Avouris is a Greek chemical physicist who has served as an IBM Fellow...

Roger R. Schmidt

Named an IBM Fellow in 2009 and prolific contributor to cooling IBM's supercomputers, high performance servers, client/servers, and other equipment through the innovative use of air, water, and refrigerants, Schmidt is an...

Michael James Lighthill

Pioneer in aeroacoustics and developer of television and communications satellites, Lighthill was a British applied mathematician known for his pioneering work in fluid dynamics. He worked at the National Physical Laboratory, Trinity...

Karl Kempf

Pioneer in applying advanced mathematics to industrial and engineering challenges, Kempf is best known for heading a group of mathematicians at Stanford University who built computer models allowing Intel to design financial...