Tim Westergren

Founder and CEO of Pandora, Westergren started the Music Genome Project, a mathematical algorithm to organize music. The idea was marketed by Pandora Media. Westergren, along with the other developers, patented the...

Van Jacobson

One of the primary contributors to the TCP/IP protocol stack — the technological foundation of today's Internet — Jacobson is renowned for his pioneering achievements in network performance and scaling. He joined...

Richard (Dick) Chao-Fan Chu

A prolific technical innovator in cooling technology, Chu's patents and publications were recognized outside of IBM as industry standards for the cooling of electronic equipment. Born in Beijing, China, he was the son...

John (James) Clerk Maxwell

A Scottish physicist and mathematician, he was born in Edinburgh, to John Clerk and Frances Cay. His father was a man of comfortable means, of the Clerk family of Penicuik, Midlothian, holders...

John Napier

Renowned as the discoverer of the logarithm and inventor of "Napier's bones," Napier was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchiston. He was the son...

Robert Morris

Contributor to early versions of UNIX, Morris developed the math library, the program crypt, and the password encryption scheme used for user authentication. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and received a...

Vilhelm Friman Koren Bjerknes

His experiments with electric oscillations contributed much to the development of wireless telegraphy. Bjerknes was a Norwegian physicist and meteorologist who did much to found the modern practice of weather forecasting. He...

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,...

Jon (Mad Dog) Hall

During his time with Digital Equipment Corporation that he initially became interested in Linux, and was instrumental in obtaining equipment and resources for Linus Torvalds to accomplish his first port, to Digital's...

David John Wheeler

Inventor of the closed subroutine, Wheeler was a pioneer of standard programming techniques whose elegant coding of the EDSAC Initial Orders in only 30 words of store remained a model of what...

James L. Fergason

Inventor of an improved liquid crystal display, Fergason made his seminal discovery of the twisted nematic cell — a low-power, field-operated LC display — in 1969 while at the Liquid Crystal Institute...

John C. Klensin

Co-creator of the Network Startup Resource Center, helping dozens of countries to establish connections with the Internet, Klensin's career has included 30 years as a Principal Research Scientist at MIT, a stint...

Frederic (Ted) Withington

Founder board member of the IT History Society and Silicon Valley venture capitalist, Withington began his career as a programmer at NSA in 1953. Over the years he worked for computer makers...

Maria Klawe

Known for her advocacy for women in STEM fields, Klawe served as the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College from 2006 to 2023. Prior to that role, she served as Dean of...

Alexander Matveevich Poniatoff

Founder of AMPEX, Poniatoff established the company in 1944, using his initials, A.M.P., plus "ex" for "excellence" to create the name. The high-frequency bias technique, which made quality recording possible, was invented...

William (Bill) Thomas Tutte

A foundational figure in combinatorics and graph theory, Tutte performed significant work in fields with many applications in computer science, and is credited with helping create graph theory in its modern form....

Nagui Halim

Team leader who developed System S—a computing system able to manage and analyze massive volumes of continuous streams of data—Halim was named an IBM Fellow in 2011, the highest honor a scientist,...

Arthur Dehon Little

Founder of the consulting company Arthur D. Little, which played key roles in the development of the word processor and much more, Little was an American chemist and chemical engineer born in...

Barry Schrager

Co-designer and developer of early commercial computer security software products, Schrager is recognized as one of the people who started the concept of data security when he founded and became the first...

Nikola Tesla

A major contributor to the birth of commercial electricity and revolutionary developer in the field of electromagnetism, Tesla was an inventor, mechanical engineer, and electrical engineer who is best known for his...