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...

Sidney (Sid) K. Meier

Founder of Firaxis Games and creator of "Civilization," Meier has made landmark contributions to the video game industry. In 1982, along with Bill Stealy, he co-founded MicroProse, where the "Civilization" franchise first...

Ken W. Kolence

Co-founder of Boole & Babbage, the first software product firm in Silicon Valley, Kolence is recognized as a software industry pioneer and computer executive. He received his Master's degree in Math, with...

Anant Jhingran

Considered to be the world technology leader in the field of information management, Jhingran has had a distinguished career with highly demonstrated impact on industrial practice and future technology and business directions....

Alexander L'vovich Brudno

Best known for fully describing the alpha-beta (α-β) search algorithm, Brudno was a Russian Jewish computer scientist who lived in Israel from 1991. He developed the "mathematics/machine interface" for the M-2 computer...

Lydia E. Kavraki

Known for research in robotics, bioinformatics, and algorithms, Kavraki left Greece to pursue a PhD in computer science at Stanford University. Drawn to the human potential of robotics, Kavraki studied how robots—from...

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...

Frederick (Jeff) Johns Rulifson

Leader of the team that implemented the oN-Line System (NLS), which foreshadowed many future developments in modern computing and networking, Rulifson is an American computer scientist born in Bellefontaine, Ohio. His father...

Ivan Plander

Developer of the analog computer around 1958, Plander is a Slovak computer scientist who received his Ph.D. at the Technical University in Prague and his Habilitation (Dr.Sc.) in Computer Science at the...

Ivan Edward Sutherland

Pioneer of computer graphics and inventor of Sketchpad, Sutherland received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery in 1988 for that invention, which became an early predecessor to the sort...

Bonnie Dunbar

A veteran of five Space Shuttle missions flown between 1985 and 1998, Dunbar is an American engineer and retired NASA astronaut whose flights included two dockings with the Mir space station. Before...

Judith (Judy) L. Estrin

Leader of the team that developed one of the first commercial local area network systems, Z-net, Estrin is an American business executive and technology entrepreneur who co-founded seven companies with Bill Carrico. She...

Paul V. Mockapetris

Inventor of the Domain Name System, Mockapetris is sometimes acknowledged, together with Jon Postel, as the creator of DNS. Mockapetris received his Bachelor's Degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute...

Ahti Heinla

Co-developer of Skype, Heinla is an Estonian programmer and entrepreneur who served as Lead Architect on the project alongside Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn. They had also originally developed Kazaa, which started...

Jonathan J. Rubinstein

Instrumental in the development of the iPod, Rubinstein is an American computer scientist and electrical engineer who played a central role in creating the portable music and video device first sold by...

Marc Snir

Leader of the research group responsible for major contributions to the IBM SP scalable parallel system and to the IBM Blue Gene system, Snir is a parallel computing expert whose research and...

Theodore Y. Ts'o

Known for his contributions to the Linux kernel, in particular his contributions to file systems, Ts'o graduated in 1990 from MIT with a degree in computer science. After graduation he worked in...

Kevin A. Stoodley

Conceiver and developer of the Testarossa dynamic compilation infrastructure, which along with the J9 JVM project became the basis for all of IBM's Java language implementations, Stoodley has served as Chief Technical...

Gary Kildal

Creator of CP/M, the first disk-based OS for microcomputers, Kildall built a precursor to MS-DOS. CP/M became a fertile ground for the development of application software for microcomputers that became precursors to...

Norman H. Nie

Co-inventor of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), Nie transformed how researchers analyze data. An American social scientist, university professor, inventor, and pioneering technology entrepreneur, he was born in St....