Harlan B. Mills

Pioneer in automata theory and structured programming, Mills transformed software development through his advocacy of mathematical and statistical principles in software engineering. In 1969, Mills was asked to write a program creating...

Jakob Nielsen

Founder of the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces, Nielsen invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation — a usability inspection method for computer software that...

Stephen (Steve) Walker

Member of the team that developed ARPAnet, the breakthrough packet switching system that evolved into the Internet, Walker is an American engineer who is nationally recognized for his pioneering work on the...

Christopher (Chris) J. Date

Involved in the technical planning and design of the IBM products SQL/DS and DB2, Date is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant specializing in relational database theory. He attended High Wycombe...

Tamara (Tammy) G. Kolda

Developer of the MATLAB Tensor Toolbox, Kolda has served as a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in the Informatics and Systems Assessments department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Her...

Robert (Bob) C. Baron

Program Manager for the Mariner II (Venus) and the Mariner IV (Mars) onboard space computers, Baron spent over 25 years as an engineer, entrepreneur, and executive in the computer industry. A historian,...

Eric J. Bina

Co-creator of Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape, Bina authored the first version of Mosaic in 1993 along with Marc Andreessen while working as a programmer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications...

Barbara Liskov

A pioneer in object-oriented programming, Liskov's work in programming methodology has affected all aspects of modern computing, including programming languages, object-oriented programming, and software robustness to hacking. She designed CLU, an object-oriented...

Igor Aleksander

A pioneer in artificial intelligence and neural networks, Aleksander was born in Croatia, educated in Italy and South Africa, and completed a PhD at Queen Mary College, University of London. In 1984...

Paul Maritz

Responsible for essentially all of Microsoft's desktop and server software — including such major initiatives as the development of Windows 95, Windows NT, and Internet Explorer — Maritz has served as a...

Victor Mayer Amédée Mannheim

Inventor of the modern slide rule, Mannheim standardized the design that remained in common use until pocket calculators took over. After graduating from the École d'Application in Metz, Mannheim became an officer of...

Daniel Kottke

The engineer who assembled and tested the first Apple I computer with fellow computer designer and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Kottke is one of the earliest employees of Apple Inc., with official...

Gary K. Starkweather

Inventor of the laser printer, Starkweather invented it at Xerox's Webster research center in 1969, and collaborated on the first fully functional laser printing system at Xerox PARC in 1971. At Apple Computer...

Kathleen (Kay) McNulty Mauchly Antonelli

One of the six original programmers of the ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, Antonelli helped lay the foundations of modern computing. Kathleen (Kay) McNulty was born on February 12, 1921, in...

Arthur (Dick) Kittredge Watson

President of IBM World Trade Corporation, Watson guided the expansion of the international business and later served as United States Ambassador to France. His father, Thomas J. Watson, was President of International...

Joan L. Mitchell

A key contributor to the JPEG image compression algorithm and MPEG video standards, Mitchell became an IBM Fellow in 2001. Working at IBM with William B. Pennebaker, she helped fine-tune the JPEG...

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...

Ralph L. Palmer

Developer of the IBM 604 Electronic Calculator, Palmer graduated with a B.S. in electrical engineering from Union College in Schenectady in 1931. He joined IBM as an engineer in 1932. It was here...

John (Jack) Mason Harker

Pioneer of the IBM 350 RAMAC disk storage unit — the world's first hard disk drive — Harker started as a member of the original team that developed the first disk storage...

Vannevar Bush

The first presidential science advisor, Bush was an American engineer and science administrator known for his work on analog computing, his political role in the development of the atomic bomb as a...