Cecil Wayne Ratliff

Creator of the Vulcan database program, Ratliff worked for the Martin Marietta Corporation from 1969 to 1982 in a progression of engineering and managerial positions. He was a member of the NASA...

William Gordon Welchman

One of four signatories to an influential letter delivered personally to Winston Churchill in October 1941 asking for more resources for the code-breaking work at Bletchley Park, and teacher of the first...

Annie Easley

A significant contributor to the early development of NASA's rocket technologies, Easley spent decades as a NASA engineer whose work in programming, energy-conversion, and shuttle launches helped address the agency's need for...

Elaine J. Weyuker

Leading researcher on rigorous software testing, including industrial evaluations of the comparative effectiveness and costs of such testing methods, Weyuker is an ACM Fellow, an IEEE Fellow (since 2003), and an AT&T...

Ralph J. Slutz

ENIAC physicist and computer pioneer, Slutz made critical contributions to two milestones of human computing history. He passed away on November 16, 2005, at Boulder Community Hospital, Colorado, USA, at age 88. Dr....

Shuman Ghosemajumder

Creator of the first real-time collaborative graphic design application, Ghosemajumder is a Canadian technologist, entrepreneur, and author. He was born in Stuttgart, Germany and grew up in London, Ontario, Canada. In 1996 he...

William Allan Wulf

Designer of the BLISS programming language and developer of a groundbreaking optimizing compiler for its use, Wulf was a computer scientist notable for his work in programming languages and compilers. He was...

Mamoru Hosaka

A pioneer of seminal computer research and development in Japan, Hosaka was born in 1920 and graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1942, majoring in aeronautical engineering. After 1946, he belonged...

Ben Silbermann

Co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, a virtual pinboard that grew faster than Facebook and Twitter, Silbermann launched the platform in early 2010 alongside Paul Sciarra and Evan Sharp. Pinterest is a free...

Edmund Callis Berkeley

Author of the landmark 1949 book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think, Berkeley became famous for describing the principles behind computing machines and surveying the most prominent examples of the time, including...

Sean Parker

Co-founder of Napster and the first President of Facebook, Parker is an American entrepreneur who also co-founded Plaxo, Causes, and Airtime. As of March 2012, his net worth was estimated to be...

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...

Glenford (Glen) Myers

Leader of the team that developed the advanced computer system "SWARD" (Software Oriented Architecture), built and successfully operated in 1980, Myers is an American computer scientist, entrepreneur, and author. He founded two...

Matti Makkonen

Known as the father of SMS (Short Message Service) — i.e., text messaging — Makkonen was an engineer in the field of Mobile Communications. Born in Suomussalmi, Finland, he was employed (among...

Joseph Henry

Inventor of the electromagnetic relay that formed the basis of the electrical telegraph, Henry was also the first secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and a founding member of the National Institute for...

Edith Clarke

Pioneer of electrical engineering and the inventor of the Clarke calculator, Clarke broke barriers as the first woman to earn an M.S. in electrical engineering from MIT. Clarke studied mathematics and astronomy at...

Sophie Wilson

Primary designer of the ARM microprocessor, Wilson is a British computer scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS). She was born in Leeds, England, and was educated at the University of...

Arnold T. Nordsieck

Builder of the "differential analyzer"—an analog computer capable of solving complex equations and drawing curves—Nordsieck constructed the device in the 1950s out of $700-worth of war surplus materials. Clones subsequently became the...

John Sall

Co-developer of the SAS System and co-founder of SAS Institute Inc., Sall has made extensive programming contributions in econometrics, time series, and matrix algebra. Born in Rockford, Illinois, he is an American...

Bob Blainey

Leader in breakthrough innovation in compiler technology, IBM's Java technology, and next-generation systems, Blainey has served as an IBM Fellow and the technical architect of the Hardware Acceleration Laboratory in IBM's Software...