John Warner Backus

Leader of the team that invented FORTRAN, the first widely used high-level programming language, Backus also invented the Backus-Naur form (BNF), the almost universally used notation to define formal language syntax. He...

Chandu Thota

A widely recognized expert in mapping, geo-spatial applications, and scalable web services, Thota is a software entrepreneur notable for starting a service called Dealmap, which launched DealExchange to help publishers and local...

Fred William Wenninger

Leader of the team that developed the Synchro-Rectro-Flash analog computer prototype at HP in the late 1960s, Wenninger also conducted early research for a new algebraic programming language that would eventually be...

Priit Kasesalu

Co-developer of Skype and head programmer for Kazaa Media Desktop, Kasesalu is a pioneering Estonian software developer. In 1986, he began his career as a programmer for a local hardware manufacturer with...

Shashi Shekhar

Major contributor to data engineering and database systems, including the Connectivity-Clustered Access Method (CCAM), a new storage and access method for spatial networks, Shekhar is a McKnight Distinguished University Professor at the...

Fred M. Gibbons

Co-founder and CEO of Software Publishing Corporation (SPC), best known for its pioneering Harvard Graphics business and presentation graphics program, Gibbons cofounded the Mountain View, California-based company in 1980 along with two...

Mary Lou Soffa

Developer of software tools for debugging and testing programs to eliminate or reduce false alarms and improve operating efficiency, Soffa is an American computer scientist also noted for her research on compilers,...

Alan Mathison Turing

The mathematical logician Alan Mathison Turing OBE (1912-1954) contributed to logic, mathematics, cryptanalysis, philosophy, mathematical biology, and formatively to computer science, Artificial Intelligence, cognitive science, and the computational study of biological growth. Turing...

David Gelernter

Made seminal contributions to the field of parallel computation, specifically the tuple space coordination model as embodied by the Linda programming system (named for Linda Lovelace, an actress in the porn movie...

John W. Brackett

Co-founder of SofTech, a Boston-based software company, Brackett managed the company's software development projects for large commercial and government clients as Vice President of Software Production. Brackett received his B.S. degree from MIT...

Frances (Betty) Elizabeth Holberton

One of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, Holberton made foundational contributions to the history of computing. During World War II, while the men were fighting,...

Brian Warboys

Chief designer of ICL's VME operating system, Warboys went on to become a Professor of Software Engineering at the University of Manchester from 1985 until he retired in September 2007, subsequently being...

Wayne P. Stevens

Co-refiner and promoter of the concepts of what is now called Flow-based Programming (FBP), Stevens worked with John Paul Morrison to develop and advocate these ideas. An American software engineer, highly respected...

Peter James Denning

Pioneer of virtual memory systems and co-founder of CSNET, Denning is best known for discovering the locality principle and designing the working set model for program behavior. He took an early interest in...

Armando Fox

Co-founder of the Berkeley RAD Lab and co-designer of the Intel Pentium Pro microprocessor, Fox has served as an Adjunct Associate Professor at UC Berkeley. Prior to that he joined Stanford as...

B. (Bob) Ramakrishna Rau

Developer of the Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) technology that is now standard in modern computer processors, Rau was widely recognized as an expert in VLIW computing, which is the basis of...

Saul Rosen

Chief software designer for the world's first transistorized computer, the Philco TRANSAC S-2000, Rosen left a significant mark on early computing history. Born in Port Chester, NY, Rosen was elected to Phi Beta...

Alexander G. Fraser

Known for designing the Titan computer's file system and inventing cell-based networks that anticipated Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Fraser made lasting contributions to computing and networking. From 1966-1969 he was Assistant Director...

Herbert Freeman

Contributor to the field of automatic label placement, computer graphics, and machine vision, Freeman published numerous works on geometric patterns from '61 and co-founded, with Azriel Rosenfeld of the University of Maryland,...

Jaron Zepel Lanier

Pioneer of virtual reality, Lanier led the team in the late 1980s that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head-mounted displays. In mid-1997, he became a founding member of...