David Elieser Deutsch

David Deutsch laid the foundations of the quantum theory of computation, and subsequently made or participated in many of the most important advances in the field, including the discovery of the first...

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...

John P. Morgridge

Former Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Cisco Systems, Morgridge is an American businessman from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin who attended Wauwatosa East High School. He received his Bachelor's Degree in...

Bettina Speckmann

Speckmann headed the Applied Geometric Algorithms group at Eindhoven University of Technology and was a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Her research focused on computational...

James Herbert Pomerene

Co-inventor and developer of the IAS machine and IBM 7030 and Harvest computers, Pomerene joined the Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey under the...

Jaan Tallinn

Co-developer of Skype and FastTrack/Kazaa, Tallinn holds the world's record for the largest number of software downloads at almost 500 million. An Estonian programmer, he is widely celebrated for writing the peer-to-peer...

George Edward Pake

Founding director of Xerox PARC, Pake led the research center during which time it invented the laser printer and pioneered the use of a computer "desktop" which functioned by clicking on "icons,"...

Ethel Cox Marden

Participant in the creation of the first computer languages, Marden went to work for the National Bureau of Standards after World War II, serving as a mathematician and administrator. She served 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...

Paul M. Horn

Pioneer in the use of copper and self-assembly in chip manufacturing and contributor to pervasive computing, Horn is an American computer scientist and solid state physicist. He spent 28 years with IBM...

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...

Krishnendu (Krish) Chakrabarty

Pioneer researcher on the design automation and testing of complex chips with application to microfluidic biochips, Chakrabarty has served as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University in Durham,...

Philipp Matthäus Hahn

Designer of the first functional mechanical calculator, Hahn was born on 25th of November, 1739 in Scharnhausen, Esslingen, as the second of ten children in a family of a pastor. From 1749...

Srini Devadas

Co-inventor of silicon Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and co-founder of Verayo, a company focused on improving the security of computer hardware, Devadas has served as the Edwin Sibley Webster Professor of Electrical...

Hugh Darwen

Chief architect on Business System 12, a database management system that faithfully embraced the principles of the relational model, Darwen has been recognized as a significant figure in the history of the...

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...

Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, CMG, CBE

One of the key workers on breaking the Enigma machine, Alexander made vital contributions to British codebreaking during World War II. An Irish-born British cryptanalyst, chess player, and chess writer, he was...

Joy Buolamwini

Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL), Buolamwini founded an organization dedicated to challenging bias in decision-making software through art, advocacy, and research. Her work highlighted the social implications and harms of...

Wilhelm Schickard

Inventor of many machines, including one for calculating astronomical dates and one for Hebrew grammar, Schickard was a universal scientist whose research spanned astronomy, mathematics, and surveying. He taught biblical languages such as...

Henrietta Swan Leavitt

Her discovery of the period-luminosity relationship for Cepheid variable stars gave astronomers their first reliable tool for measuring distances to other galaxies, fundamentally shifting the understanding of the scale and nature of...