Marlyn Meltzer (née Wescoff)

One of the original programmers of the ENIAC, the world's first electronic computer, Meltzer was selected for this role in 1945. A graduate of Temple University in 1942, she was hired by...

John Alan Lasseter

Pioneer in the use of CGI animation and one of the three founding fathers of Pixar Animation Studios, Lasseter has served as the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation...

Shawn Fanning

Developed Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer filesharing platforms

Joshua Schachter

Creator of Delicious, GeoURL, and co-creator of Memepool, Schachter holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He released the first version of Delicious (then called...

James (J.H.) Hardy Wilkinson

A prominent researcher in numerical analysis to facilitate the use of the high-speed digital computer, Wilkinson received the Turing Award in 1970 "for his research in numerical analysis to facilitate the use...

Michael (Mike) J. Karels

Key contributor to the history of BSD UNIX, Karels was an American software engineer who graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology. He went on...

Andries (Andy) van Dam

Co-contributor to the first hypertext system and co-founder of the precursor to ACM SIGGRAPH, van Dam is a Dutch-born American professor of computer science and former Vice-President for Research at Brown University...

Kathleen Booth (née Britten)

Credited with writing the first assembly language and the design of the assembler and autocode (ARC and APE(X)C) for the Birkbeck College computers, Booth made foundational contributions to computer programming. Born in...

George Ciprian Necula

Known for his influential Ph.D. thesis first describing proof-carrying code, Necula completed his doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University under programming languages researcher Peter Lee. Originally from Baia Mare, Romania, he attended the...

Markus Neteler

Honored with the Sol Katz Award for Geospatial Free and Open Source Software (GFOSS) in recognition of his commitment to GRASS project coordination, Neteler has served as coordinator of the GRASS (Geographic...

Feng-hsiung Hsu

Architect and principal designer of IBM Deep Blue, the chess machine that defeated the World Chess Champion in 1997, Hsu is a computer scientist and author of Behind Deep Blue: Building the...

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...

Donald Watts Davies

Co-inventor of packet switching and originator of the term, Davies was a British computer scientist who developed this foundational concept alongside Paul Baran in the US. Davies was born in Treorchy, Wales, in...

David Michael Dahm

Designer of the pioneering Burroughs B5000 compiler and operating systems, Dahm introduced generative techniques to Data Base Management. Born in Texarkana, Arkansas, he grew up in Dallas, Texas, and graduated Valedictorian from...

James A. Gosling

Credited as the inventor of the Java programming language, Gosling is best known as the father of Java.

Herbert Alexander Simon

One of the most influential social scientists of the twentieth century, Simon was an American political scientist, economist, and psychologist whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, computer science, public...

Radia Joy Perlman

Inventor of the spanning-tree protocol, which is fundamental to the operation of network bridges, Perlman is a software designer and network engineer sometimes referred to as the "Mother of the Internet," though...

Joseph Hardin

Leader of the Comprehensive Collaborative Framework (CHEF) project, which developed an open source framework and tools for course management systems, workgroup support, and support of online research, Hardin has served as Director...

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...

Daniel Singer Bricklin

Co-creator of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program available for personal computers, Bricklin co-founded Software Arts, Inc. with Frankston in 1979 and began selling VisiCalc that same year. He was given a Grace...