Richard Wesley Hamming

Known for his work on numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting and error-correcting codes, Hamming was an American mathematician whose work had many implications for computer science and telecommunications. Hamming's contributions...

Paul Tseng

The first to establish the convergence of the affine scaling algorithm for linear programming in the presence of degeneracy, Tseng was recognized by his peers to be one of the leading optimization...

Norbert Wiener

Founder of cybernetics, Wiener pioneered the study of stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems. Cybernetics, the field he founded, formalized the notion of...

Alfred Vaino Aho

Co-author of the AWK programming language and numerous landmark computer science textbooks, Aho is widely recognized as a foundational figure in programming languages and compiler design. He conducted research at Bell Labs...

René Descartes

Credited as the father of analytical geometry, Descartes built the bridge between algebra and geometry that proved crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. The Cartesian coordinate system—allowing algebraic equations...

Ramakrishnan Srikant

Key architect for IBM Intelligent Miner, Srikant contributed the association rules and sequential patterns modules to the product. Dr. Srikant has served as a Principal Research Scientist at Google. He previously managed the...

Nicholas (Nick) John Pippenger

Co-inventor of extendible hashing, Pippenger is recognized for a number of fundamental results widely used in theoretical computer science, database processing, and compiler optimization. He held a B.S. degree in Natural Sciences...

John Edward Hopcroft

Recognized for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures, Hopcroft is an American theoretical computer scientist. His textbooks on theory of computation (also known as the Cinderella...

Klaus Samelson

A pioneer whose research led to a fundamental breakthrough in how computer systems are modeled and designed, Samelson also played a key role in the design of ALGOL 58 and ALGOL 60....

Robin Oliver Gandy

A pioneer in recursion theory, Gandy is best known for the Spector-Gandy theorem, the Gandy Stage Comparison theorem, and the Gandy Selection Theorem. A British mathematician and logician, he was a friend,...

Charles Antony Richard Hoare

Developer of Quicksort, one of the world's most widely used sorting algorithms, Hoare also developed Hoare logic for verifying program correctness, and the formal language Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) to specify the...

John (Jack) G. Herriot

Teacher of the first programming course at Stanford University, Herriot helped found the Computer Science Department and served as the first Director of the Stanford Computation Center, which later evolved to become...

Frederick Jelinek

Pioneer of speech recognition, Jelinek was a Czech-American researcher in information theory, automatic speech recognition, and natural language processing, well known for his oft-quoted statement, "Every time I fire a linguist, the...

Marvin Lee Minsky

Co-founder of MIT's AI laboratory and a towering figure in artificial intelligence, Minsky was an American cognitive scientist and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.

Mark N. Wegman

Co-inventor of Static Single Assignment (SSA) form, which is used in the analysis portion of most if not all modern optimizing compilers, Wegman is an American computer scientist known for his contributions...

Kurt Gödel

Known for his two incompleteness theorems, Gödel heavily influenced the sciences and mathematics. Published in 1931 when he was 25 years of age, one year after finishing his doctorate at the University...

Conrad (Conny) Palm

Contributor to teletraffic engineering and queueing theory, Palm also led the project that developed the first Swedish computer, the BARK. He enrolled at the School of Electrical Engineering at the Royal Institute...

Claude Elwood Shannon

Developer of Information Theory, the basis for the design of communication systems and networks, Shannon also noted the importance of Boolean theory for the design of logic circuits whilst still a student...

David Hilbert

One of the founders of proof theory and mathematical logic, Hilbert's work laid the basis for recursion theory and later theoretical computer science. He was recognized as one of the most influential...

Amir Pnueli

Pioneer of temporal logic in computing science, Pnueli made a major breakthrough in the verification and certification of concurrent and reactive systems with his landmark 1977 paper "The Temporal Logic of Programs,"...