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List of pioneers in computer science

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This is a list of people who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation,
development and imagining of what computers could do.

Pioneers[edit]
To arrange the list by date or person (ascending or
descending), click that column's small "up-down" icon.

Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Ingenious contribution and making public-key

1977 Adleman, Leonard
cryptography useful in practice.

1944 Aiken, Howard Conceived and co-designed the Harvard Mark I.

The term algorithm is derived from the algorism, the

technique of performing arithmetic with Hindu–
830~ Al-Khwarizmi
Arabic numerals popularised by al-Khwarizmi in his
book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals.[1][2][3]

Developed bit vector notation and program control-

1970, 1989 Allen, Frances E. flow graphs; first female IBM Fellow (1989); first
female recipient of the ACM's Turing Award (2006).

Built the first electronic digital computer,

1939 Atanasoff, John the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, though it was neither
programmable nor Turing-complete.

Originated the concept of a programmable general-

purpose computer; designed the Analytical
1822, 1837 Babbage, Charles
Engine and built a prototype for a less
powerful mechanical calculator.

1973 Bachman, Charles Outstanding contributions to database technology[4]

1954, 1963 Backus, John Led the team that

Achievement
Person Achievement
date

created FORTRAN (Formula Translation), the first

practical high-level programming language, and
formulated the Backus–Naur form that described the
formal language syntax.

Three brothers who wrote the Book of Ingenious

Devices, describing what appears to be the
850~ Banū Mūsā
first programmable machine,
an automatic flute player.[5]

One of two independent inventors of the concept of

digital packet switching used in modern computer
networking including the Internet.[6][7] Published a
1960–1964 Baran, Paul
series of briefings and papers about dividing
information into "message blocks" and sending them
over distributed networks (1960–1964).[8][9]

French telegraphic engineer; patented the Baudot

1874 Baudot, Émile code, the first means of digital communication.
[10]
 The modem speed unit baud is named after him.

Proposed the stack for expression evaluation,

with Edsger W. Dijkstra. Influential in
establishing computer science as an independent
discipline of science; coined the term software
1960s Bauer, Friedrich L. engineering. Contributed to numerical analysis,
fundamentals of interpretation and translation of
programming languages, systematics of program
development, program transformation,
and cryptology.

American applied mathematician who
1953 Bellman, Richard E.
introduced dynamic programming (1953)

Bengio, Yoshua; Hinton,
2018 Conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have
Geoffrey; Lecun, Yann
made deep neural networks a critical component of
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

computing[11]

Invented the World Wide Web; with Robert Cailliau,

1989, 1990 Berners-Lee, Tim sent the first HTTP communication between client
and server.

Contributions to the foundations of computational

1995 Blum, Manuel complexity theory and its application
to cryptography and program checking[12]

1966 Böhm, Corrado Theorized of the concept of structured programming.

Formalized Boolean algebra, the basis for digital

1847, 1854 Boole, George
logic and computer science.

1947 Booth, Kathleen Invented the first assembly language.

Developed the RC 4000 multiprogramming system,

which introduced the concept of an operating system
kernel and the separation of policy and mechanism;
effectively the first microkernel architecture.[13] Co-
1969, 1978 Brinch Hansen, Per developed the monitor with Tony Hoare, and created
the first monitor implementation.[14] Implemented the
first form of remote procedure call in the RC 4000,
[13]
 and was first to propose remote procedure calls as
a structuring concept for distributed computing.[15]

Manager of IBM System/360 and OS/360 projects;
1959, 1995 Brooks, Fred
author of The Mythical Man-Month.

Brouwer, Luitzen Founded intuitionistic logic, which later came to

1908
Egbertus Jan prevalent use in proof assistants.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Proposed Reverse Polish Notation with Don Warren

and Jesse Wright, later independently reinvented
1954 Burks, Arthur
by Friedrich L. Bauer and Edsger W. Dijkstra for use
with stacks.

Analogue computing pioneer; originator of

1930 Bush, Vannevar the Memex concept, which led to the development
of Hypertext

With John Pinkerton, developed the LEO computer,

1951 Caminer, David
the first business computer, for J. Lyons and Co

Computer generated imagery (CGI) and 3D graphics

pioneer who developed texture mapping,
the Catmull-Clark subdivision surface algorithm
1974 Catmull, Edwin (with Jim Clark), and the [Catmull-Rom spline]]
(with Raphael Rom. Former vice president
of Industrial Light & Magic and co-founder of and
former president of Pixar

With Bob Kahn, designed the Transmission Control

Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the primary
1978 Cerf, Vint
data communication protocols of the Internet and
other computer networks

Made contributions to computer science with his

work in linguistics. Developed Chomsky hierarchy,
1956 Chomsky, Noam
directly impacting programming language theory and
other branches of computer science.

Made fundamental contributions to theoretical

computer science, specifically in the development
of computability theory in the form of lambda
1936 Church, Alonzo
calculus. Independently of Alan Turing, formulated
what is now known as the Church-Turing Thesis and
proved that first-order logic is undecidable.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Designed LINC, the first functional computer scaled

down and priced for individual users (1963). Many
1962 Clark, Wesley A.
of its features are considered prototypes of essential
elements of personal computers.

Developed model checking and formal verification

1981 Clarke, Edmund M.
of software and hardware, with E. Allen Emerson.

Significant contributions to compiler design and

theory, the architecture of large systems, and the
1987 Cocke, John
development of reduced instruction set
computers (RISC)

Proposed and formalized the relational model of data

1970 Codd, Edgar F. management, the theoretical basis of relational
databases

Superscalar architecture with multiple-issue out-of-

1971 Conway, Lynn
order dynamic instruction scheduling

Formalized the notion of NP-completeness, inspiring

1967 Cook, Stephen a great deal of research in computational complexity
theory

With John W. Tukey, created the fast Fourier

1965 Cooley, James
transform

Pioneering work organizing the concepts and leading

the development of the general-purpose, large-
1989 Corbató, Fernando J.
scale, time-sharing and resource-sharing computer
systems CTSS and Multics

1964 – 1996 Cray, Seymour Designed a series of computers that were the fastest
in the world for decades; and founded Cray
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Research, which built many of them; credited with

creating the supercomputer industry

Major pioneer of operating-system design through

his work at Digital Equipment
1978, 1993 Cutler, David N. Corporation and Microsoft, where he was lead
engineer of the VMS and Windows NT kernels
(respectively)

With Kristen Nygaard, invented the proto-object

1962 Dahl, Ole-Johan
oriented language SIMULA

One of two independent inventors of the concept of

digital packet switching used in modern computer
networking including the Internet.[6][16] Conceived of
and named the concept for data communication
1965 Davies, Donald
networks (1965–66).[17][18] Many of the wide-area
packet-switched networks of the 1970s,
including ARPANET, were similar "in nearly all
respects" to his original 1965 design.[19]

Fundamental contributions to modern cryptography.

Diffie and Hellman's groundbreaking 1976 paper
"New Directions in Cryptography"[20] introduced the
1976 Diffie, Whitfield
ideas of public-key cryptography and digital
signatures, the foundation of security protocols used
on the Internet today.[21]

Made advances in algorithms; pioneered and coined

the term structured programming; invented
1968 Dijkstra, Edsger
the semaphore; famously suggested that the GOTO
statement should be considered harmful

Eccles, Patented the Eccles–Jordan trigger circuit, [22] the so-

1918 William and Jordan, called "bistable flip-flop", a building block of all
Frank Wilfred digital memory cells. Built from vacuum tubes, their
concept was essential for the success of the Colossus
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

codebreaking computer.

With John Mauchly, designed and built ENIAC, the

first modern (all electronic, Turing-complete)
1943, 1951 Eckert, J. Presper
computer; and UNIVAC I, the first commercially
available computer

Developed model checking and formal verification

1981 Emerson, E. Allen
of software and hardware, with Edmund M. Clarke

Best known for inventing the computer mouse,

with Bill English; pioneer of human–computer
1963 Engelbart, Douglas interaction whose Augment team
developed hypertext, networked computers, and
precursors to GUIs

Designed the first commercial microprocessor, Intel

1971 Faggin, Federico
4004

Pioneering the design and construction of large-scale

artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the
1994 Feigenbaum, Edward
practical importance and potential commercial
impact of artificial intelligence technology[23]

Lead team that defined a simple text file format for

Internet host names, which became the Domain
1974 Feinler, Elizabeth Name System; her group became the naming
authority for the top-level domains
of .mil, .gov, .edu, .org, and .com

Designed and built the Mark 1 and the ten improved

1943 Flowers, Tommy Mark 2 Colossus computers, the world's first
programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Had a clear influence on methodologies for the

creation of efficient and reliable software; helped to
found these important sub-fields of computer
1978 Floyd, Robert W. science: theory of parsing, semantics of
programming languages, automatic program
verification, automatic program synthesis,
and analysis of algorithms[24]

Founded the field of Active Queue Management; co-

1994 Floyd, Sally invented Random Early Detection, used in almost all
Internet routers

Extended Aristotelian logic with first-order predicate

calculus independently of Charles Sanders Peirce, a
1879 Frege, Gottlob crucial precursor in computability theory; also
relevant to early work on artificial intelligence, logic
programming

Furber, Stephen Lead the creation of the ARM 32-bit RISC

1985
Sophie Wilson microprocessor[25]

Proved "don't-care" circuit minimization does not

necessarily yield optimal results; proved that
1958, 1961, 1967 Ginsburg, Seymour the ALGOL programming language was context-free
(linking formal language theory to the problem
of compiler writing); invented AFL Theory

Proved that Peano arithmetic could not be

both logically consistent and complete in first-order
1931 Gödel, Kurt predicate calculus. Church, Kleene, and Turing
developed the foundations of computation theory
based on corollaries to Gödel's work.

Invented zero-knowledge
1989 Goldwasser, Shafi proofs with Micali and Rackoff; she and Micali
received the Turing Award (2012) for this and other
work.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Awarded the 2009 IEEE John von Neumann

Graham, Susan L.[undue Medal for "contributions to programming language
2011 weight? – discuss]
design and implementation and for exemplary
service to the discipline of computer science"

Physicist and researcher at Bell Labs, developed the

reflected binary code (RBC) or Gray code.[26] Gray's
1953 Gray, Frank methodologies are used for error detection and
correction in digital communication systems, such
as QAM in digital subscriber line networks.

Innovator in database systems and transaction

1974, 2005 Gray, Jim
processing implementation

Created the first computational model of discourse,

establishing the field of research and influencing
1986, 1990 Grosz, Barbara[undue language-processing technologies;
weight? – discuss]

developed SharedPlans model for collaboration

in multi-agent systems

Proved the viability of parallel computing

experimentally and theoretically;
1988, 2015 Gustafson, John formulated Gustafson's Law; developed high-
efficiency formats for representing real
numbers Unum and Posit

Developed the concepts of asynchronous software,

priority scheduling, end-to-end testing, and human-
1971 Hamilton, Margaret in-the-loop decision capability, such as priority
displays which then became the foundation for ultra-
reliable software design

1950 Hamming, Richard Created the fields of error-correcting code, Hamming

code, Hamming matrix, the Hamming
window, Hamming numbers, sphere-
packing (or Hamming bound), and the Hamming
distance;[27][28] established the concept of perfect
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

code[29][30]

Pioneering work on automata theory, parallel

1956, 1958, 1974 Händler, Wolfgang
computing, artificial intelligence, man-machine
interfaces and computer graphics; one of the lead
architects of the TR 4 [de] supercomputer;
invented Händler diagrams for logic function
minimization; devised the Erlangen Classification
System [de] (ECS) for parallel computers

Fundamental contributions to 3D computer graphics,

2019 Hanrahan, Pat with revolutionary impact on computer-generated
imagery (CGI) in filmmaking and other applications

Foundations for the field of computational

1993 Hartmanis, Juris
complexity theory[31]

Author of Turbo Pascal at Borland; chief architect

1981, 1995, 1999 Hejlsberg, Anders of Delphi; designer and lead architect of C# at
Microsoft

Fundamental contributions to modern cryptography.

Diffie and Hellman's groundbreaking 1976 paper,
"New Directions in Cryptography,"[20] introduced the
1976 Hellman, Martin
ideas of public-key cryptography and digital
signatures, the foundation for security protocols on
the Internet today[21]

Pioneered a systematic, quantitative approach to the

2017 Hennessy, John L. design and evaluation of computer architectures with
enduring impact on the microprocessor industry

2008, 2012, 2018 Hinton, Geoffrey Popularized and enabled the use of artificial neural
networks and deep learning, among the most
successful tools in modern artificial
intelligence efforts; received the Turing Award
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

(2018) for conceptual and engineering breakthroughs

that have made deep neural networks a critical
component of computing[11]

Developed the formal language Communicating

Sequential Processes (CSP), Hoare logic for
1961, 1969,
Hoare, C. A. R. verifying program correctness, and Quicksort;
1978, 1980
fundamental contributions to the definition and
design of programming languages

1968 Holberton, Betty Wrote the first mainframe sort merge on the Univac

Widely regarded as the father of modern machine

data processing, his invention of the punched card
1889 Hollerith, Herman
tabulating machine marked the beginning of the era
of semiautomatic data processing systems

Fundamental achievements in the design and analysis

1986 Hopcroft, John
of algorithms and data structures

Pioneered work on the necessity for high-level

programming languages, which she
1952 Hopper, Grace termed automatic programming; wrote the A-
O compiler, which heavily influenced
the COBOL language

Work leading to the creation of the Deep

Thought chess computer; architect and principal
1997 Hsu Feng-hsiung designer IBM Deep Blue chess computer that
defeated the reigning World Chess Champion, Garry
Kasparov, in 1997

1952 Huffman, David Created Huffman coding

Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Helped IBM develop its first general-purpose

1952 Hurd, Cuthbert
computer, the IBM 701

Contributions to the design of early computers

including ENIAC, EDVAC, Pilot
1945, 1953 Huskey, Harry ACE, EDVAC, SEAC, SWAC, and Bendix G-
15 (the latter described as the first personal
computer, being operable by one person)

Helped establish and taught the first graduate course

in computer science (at Harvard); invented the APL
1954, 1962 Iverson, Kenneth
programming language; contributions to interactive
computing

Built and demonstrated the Jacquard loom, a

1801 Jacquard, Joseph Marie programmable mechanized loom controlled by a tape
constructed from punched cards

Invented programmable machines, including
programmable humanoid robots,[32] and the castle
1206 Al-Jazari
clock, an astronomical clock considered the
first programmable analog computer[33]

Fundamental contributions to numerical analysis;

foremost expert on floating-point computations;
1989 Kahan, William
dedicated to "making the world safe for numerical
computations"

Designed the Transmission Control

Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the primary
1978 Kahn, Bob
data communication protocols of the Internet and
other computer networks

1952, 1953 Karnaugh, Maurice Creator of the Karnaugh map, a variation on Edward

Veitch's Veitch chart ; rediscovery of Allan
Marquand's much earlier logical diagram used
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

for logic function minimization

Contributions to algorithm theory, including the

development of efficient algorithms for network flow
and other combinatorial optimization problems;
1985 Karp, Richard M.
identified polynomial-time computability with the
intuitive notion of algorithmic efficiency; contributed
to the theory of NP-completeness

Developed the first differential analyzer using

transistors; developed one of the first machine-
1973 Karpinski, Jacek learning algorithms for character and image
recognition; invented of one of the first
minicomputers, the K-202

Pioneered many ideas at the root of object-oriented

programming languages; led the team that
1970~ Kay, Alan
developed Smalltalk; made fundamental
contributions to personal computing

1972–1994 Kildall, Gary Introduced the theory of data-flow

analysis in optimizing compilers (global expression
optimization, Kildall's method). Worked on
instruction set emulators (INTERP), found an
innovative software relocation method (page
boundary relocation), and laid the foundation to the
concepts of binary recompilation (XLT86).
Developed the first high-level programming
language and compiler for microcomputers (PL/M)
and the first mainstream operating system for
microcomputers (CP/M). Invented the concept of
a hardware abstraction layer called the BIOS, with
both conceptually laying the foundation to all DOS-
based operating systems on personal computers.
Worked on diskette track buffering schemes, read-
ahead algorithms, virtual disk drives, and file
system caching. Developed the first computer
interface for video disks and pioneered CD-ROM file
systems, introducing the first encyclopedia for
computers (The Electronic Encyclopedia). Pioneered
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

a modular PBX communication system
integrating land-lines with mobile
phones (Intelliphone) and to remotely connect
with home appliances.

Whilst working for the National Bureau of

Standards (NBS), Kirsch used a recently
developed image scanner to scan and store the
1957 Kirsch, Russell Gray first digital photograph.[34] His scanned photo of his
three-month-old son was deemed
by Life magazine as one of the "100 Photographs
That Changed The World."

Pioneered the application of queueing theory to

model delays in message switching networks in his
Ph.D. thesis in 1961–1962, published as a book in
1964.[35] He later published several of the standard
works on the subject. In the early 1970s, he applied
this theory to model the performance of packet
1961–1970s Kleinrock, Leonard
switching networks. Kleinrock played an influential
role in the development of the ARPANET, the
precursor to the Internet. His theoretical work
on hierarchical routing in the late 1970s with
student Farouk Kamoun remains critical to the
operation of the Internet today.

Pioneered work with Alonzo Church on the Lambda

1936 Kleene, Stephen Cole Calculus that first laid down the foundations of
computation theory.

Wrote The Art of Computer Programming and

created TeX. Coined the term "analysis of
1968, 1989 Knuth, Donald
algorithms" and made major contributions to that
field, including popularizing Big O notation.

1974, 1978 Lamport, Leslie Formulated algorithms to solve many fundamental

problems in distributed systems (e.g. the bakery
algorithm).
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Developed the concept of a logical clock, enabling

synchronization between distributed entities based on
the events through which they communicate.
Created LaTeX.

Development of distributed, personal computing

environments and the technology for their
1992 Lampson, Butler W. implementation: workstations, networks, operating
systems, programming
systems, displays, security and document publishing.

Lebedev, Sergei Independently designed the first electronic computer

1951
Alekseyevich in the Soviet Union, MESM, in Kiev, Ukraine.

Made advances in symbolic logic, such as

the Calculus ratiocinator, that were heavily
influential on Gottlob Frege. He anticipated later
1670~ Leibniz, Gottfried
developments in first-order predicate calculus, which
were crucial for the theoretical foundations of
computer science.

Began the investigation of human–computer

interaction, leading to many advances in computer
1960 Licklider, J. C. R.
interfaces as well as in cybernetics and artificial
intelligence.

Developed the Liskov substitution principle, which

1987 Liskov, Barbara guarantees semantic interoperability of data types in
a hierarchy.

1300~ Llull, Ramon Designed multiple symbolic representations

machines, and pioneered notions of symbolic
representation and manipulation to produce
knowledge—both of which were major influences
on Leibniz.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

An English mathematician and writer, chiefly known

for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed
mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical
Engine. She was the first to recognize that the
machine had applications beyond pure calculation,
1852 Lovelace, Ada
and created the first algorithm intended to be carried
out by such a machine. As a result, she is often
regarded as the first to recognize the full potential of
a "computing machine" and the first computer
programmer.

Charles Babbage in 1843 and Percy Ludgate in 1909

designed the first two Analytical Engines in history.
Ludgate's engine used multiplication as its basis
(using his own discrete Irish logarithms), had the
1909 Ludgate, Percy
first multiplier-accumulator (MAC), was first to
exploit a MAC to perform division, stored numbers
as displacements of rods in shuttles, and had several
other novel features, including for program control.

Published an early draft on the type theory that

1971 Martin-Löf, Per
many proof assistants build on.

With J. Presper Eckert, designed and built

the ENIAC, the first modern (all electronic, Turing-
complete) computer, and the UNIVAC I, the first
1943, 1951 Mauchly, John commercially available computer. Also worked
on BINAC (1949), EDVAC (1949), UNIVAC (1951)
with Grace Hopper and Jean Bartik, to develop
early stored program computers.

1958 McCarthy, John Invented LISP, a functional programming language.

1956, 2012 McCluskey, Edward J. Fundamental contributions that shaped the design
and testing of digital systems, including the first
algorithm for digital logic synthesis, the Quine-
McCluskey logic minimization method.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Developed design by contract in the guise of

1986 Meyer, Bertrand
the Eiffel programming language.

For transformative work that laid the complexity-

theoretic foundations for the science of cryptography
2012 Micali, Silvio and in the process pioneered new methods for
efficient verification of mathematical proofs in
complexity theory.

1) LCF, the mechanization of Scott's Logic of

Computable Functions, probably the first
theoretically based yet practical tool for machine
assisted proof construction; 2) ML, the first language
to include polymorphic type inference together with
1991 Milner, Robin
a type-safe exception-handling mechanism; 3) CCS,
a general theory of concurrency. In addition, he
formulated and strongly advanced full abstraction,
the study of the relationship
between operational and denotational semantics.[36]

Co-founder of Artificial Intelligence

Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, author
1963 Minsky, Marvin of several texts on AI and philosophy. Critic of
the perceptron.

Invented the first floppy disk at Tokyo Imperial

University in 1950,[37][38] receiving a 1952 Japanese
patent[39][40] and 1958 US patent for his
1950, 1960 Nakamatsu Yoshirō
floppy magnetic disk sheet invention,[41] and licensed
to Nippon Columbia in 1960[42] and IBM in the
1970s.[39][37]
2008 Nakamoto, Satoshi The anonymous creator or creators of Bitcoin, the
first peer-to-peer digital currency. Nakamoto's 2008
white-paper introduced the concept of
the blockchain, a database structure that allows full
trust in the decentralized and distributed public
transaction ledger of the cryptocurrency.[43]
1934, 1938 Nakashima Akira NEC engineer introduced switching circuit theory in
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

papers from 1934 to 1936, laying the foundations

for digital circuit design, in digital computers and
other areas of modern technology.
Edited the ALGOL 60 Revised Report,
1960 Naur, Peter
introducing Backus-Naur form
Formulated the von Neumann architecture upon
1945 Neumann, John von
which most modern computers are based.
Together with J. C. Shaw[44] and Herbert Simon, the
three co-wrote the Logic Theorist, the first true AI
1956 Newell, Allen
program, in the first list-processing language, which
influenced LISP.
Instigated the production of the Colossus
computers at Bletchley Park. After the second world
war he established the Computing Machine
1943 Newman, Max
Laboratory at the University of Manchester where he
created the project that built the world's first stored-
program computer, the Manchester Baby.
With Ole-Johan Dahl, invented the proto-object
1962 Nygaard, Kristen
oriented language SIMULA.
Ashtadhyayi Indian Sanskrit grammar was
systematised and technical, using
metarules, transformations, and recursions, a
500 BC ~ Pāṇini
forerunner to formal language theory and basis
for Panini-Backus form used to
describe programming languages.
1642 Pascal, Blaise Invented the mechanical calculator.
For pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to
the design and evaluation of computer architectures
2017 Patterson, David
with enduring impact on the microprocessor
industry.
Fundamental contributions to artificial intelligence
2011 Pearl, Judea through the development of a calculus for
probabilistic and causal reasoning.[45]
On Project Whirlwind, member of the team that
1952 Perlis, Alan developed the ALGOL programming language, and
the first recipient of the Turing Award
1985 Perlman, Radia Invented the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which is
fundamental to the operation of network bridges,
while working for Digital Equipment Corporation.
Has done extensive and innovative research,
particularly on encryption and networking. She
Achievement
Person Achievement
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received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award

in 2007, among numerous others.
Computer designer for Olivetti, designed one of the
1964 Perotto, Pier Giorgio[undue first electronic programmable calculators,
weight? – discuss]

the Programma 101[46][47][48]
Published a series of papers grounding recursion
theory as a separate area of mathematical research,
1932 Péter, Rózsa
setting the foundation for theoretical computer
science.
Founded Affective Computing, and laid the
1995 Picard, Rosalind[undue foundations for giving computers skills of emotional
weight? – discuss]

intelligence.
Introducing temporal logic into computing science
1996 Pnueli, Amir and for outstanding contributions to program and
systems verification.[49]
Developed the Post machine as a model of
computation, independently of Turing. Known also
1936 Post, Emil L. for developing truth tables, the Post correspondence
problem used in recursion theory as well as proving
what is known as Post's theorem.
The joint paper "Finite Automata and Their Decision
Problems,"[50] which introduced the idea
of nondeterministic machines, which has proved to
1976 Rabin, Michael O.
be an enormously valuable concept. Their (Scott &
Rabin) classic paper has been a continuous source of
inspiration for subsequent work in this field.[51][52]
Pioneering the design and construction of large scale
artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the
1994 Reddy, Raj
practical importance and potential commercial
impact of artificial intelligence technology. [23]
With Ken Thompson, pioneered the C programming
1967–2011 Ritchie, Dennis language and the Unix computer operating system at
Bell Labs.
Ingenious contribution and making public-key
1977 Rivest, Ron
cryptography useful in practice.
Designed the software of the first transistor-based
1958–1960 Rosen, Saul computer. Also influenced the ALGOL programming
language.
1910 Russell, Bertrand Made contributions to computer science with his
work on mathematical logic (example: truth
function). Introduced the notion of type theory. He
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

also introduced type system (along with Alfred North

Whitehead) in his work, Principia Mathematica.
A pioneer of automatic information retrieval, who
1975 Salton, Gerard[undue proposed the vector space model and the inverted
weight? – discuss]

index.
Developed the FORMAC programming language.
She was also the first to write extensively about the
1962 Sammet, Jean E. history and categorization of programming languages
in 1969, and became the first female president of
the Association for Computing Machinery in 1974.
Proved the functional completeness of the NOR gate.
Proposed the implementation of logic via electrical
circuits, decades before Claude Shannon. Extended
1880, 1898 Sanders Peirce, Charles Aristotelian logic with first-order predicate calculus,
independently of Gottlob Frege, a crucial precursor
in computability theory. Also relevant to early work
on artificial intelligence, logic programming.
The joint paper "Finite Automata and Their Decision
Problems,"[50] which introduced the idea
of nondeterministic machines, which has proved to
1976 Scott, Dana
be an enormously valuable concept. Their (Scott &
Rabin) classic paper has been a continuous source of
inspiration for subsequent work in this field.[51][52]
Ingenious contribution and making public-key
1977 Shamir, Adi
cryptography useful in practice.
Founded information theory, and laid foundations for
1937, 1948 Shannon, Claude
practical digital circuit design.
Designed the Intel 4004, the first
commercial microprocessor,[53][54] as well as the Intel
1971 Shima Masatoshi 8080, Zilog Z80 and Zilog Z8000 microprocessors,
and the Intel 8259, 8255, 8253, 8257 and 8251 chips.
[55]

Developing model checking into a highly effective

2007 Sifakis, Joseph verification technology, widely adopted in the
hardware and software industries.[56]
A political scientist and economist who
pioneered artificial intelligence. Co-creator of
1956, 1957 Simon, Herbert A.
the Logic Theory Machine and the General Problem
Solver programs.
Spärck Jones, Karen[undue One of the pioneers of information
1953 weight? – discuss]
retrieval and natural language processing.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Stallman launched the GNU Project in September

1983 to create a Unix-like computer operating
1972 Stallman, Richard
system composed entirely of free software. With this,
he also launched the free software movement.
Foundations for the field of computational
1993 Stearns, Richard E.
complexity theory.[31]
Stepanov is one of the pioneers when it comes
to Generic Programming and he is also the primary
1981 Stepanov, Alexander
designer and implementer of the C++ Standard
Template Library.
Father of modern digital computing and remote job
entry. Coined the term "digital". Discovered the
1937, 1941 Stibitz, George R.
reflected binary code known as Gray code. Excess-3
code is named after him as well (Stibitz code).
Researcher at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) who revolutionized
1982 Stonebraker, Michael
the field of database management systems (DBMSs)
and founded multiple successful database companies
1979 Stroustrup, Bjarne Invented C++ at Bell Labs
Author of Sketchpad, the ancestor of modern
1963 Sutherland, Ivan computer-aided drafting (CAD) programs and one of
the early examples of object-oriented programming.
Fundamental achievements in the design and analysis
1986 Tarjan, Robert
of algorithms and data structures.
Pioneering design and realization of the Xerox Alto,
the first modern personal computer, and in addition
1973 Thacker, Charles P.
for his contributions to the Ethernet and the Tablet
PC.
Thi, André Truong Invention of the Micral N, the earliest commercial,
1972, 1973 Trong and François non-kit personal computer based on
Gernelle[undue weight? – discuss] a microprocessor.
Created the Unix operating system, the B
programming language, Plan 9 operating system, the
1967 Thompson, Ken first machine to achieve a Master rating in chess, and
the UTF-8 encoding at Bell Labs and the Go
programming language at Google.
1993 Toh Chai Keong Created mobile ad hoc networking; Implemented the
first working wireless ad hoc network of laptop
computers in 1998 using Linux OS, Lucent WaveLan
802.11 radios, and a new distributed routing protocol
transparent to TCP/UDP/IP.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

In 1912, Leonardo Torres Quevedo built El

Ajedrecista (the chess player), one of the first
autonomous machines capable of playing chess. As
opposed to the human-operated The Turk and Ajeeb,
El Ajedrecista was a true automaton built to play
chess without human guidance. It played an endgame
Torres Quevedo, with three chess pieces, automatically moving a
1912, 1914
Leonardo white king and a rook to checkmate the black king
moved by a human opponent. In his work Essays on
Automatics, published in 1914, Torres Quevedo
formulates what will be a new branch of
engineering: automation and designed an
electromechanical version of Babbage's Analytical
machine which included floating-point arithmetic.
1991 Torvalds, Linus Created the first version of the Linux kernel.
With James Cooley, created the fast Fourier
1965 Tukey, John W.
transform. He invented the term "bit".[57]
Made several fundamental contributions to
theoretical computer science, including the Turing
machine computational model, the conceiving of the
stored program concept and the designing of the
high-speed ACE design. Independently of Alonzo
1936 Turing, Alan
Church, he formulated the Church-Turing thesis and
proved that first-order logic is undecidable. He also
explored the philosophical issues
concerning artificial intelligence, proposing what is
now known as Turing test.
Transformative contributions to the theory of
computation, including the theory of probably
approximately correct (PAC) learning, the
2010 Valiant, Leslie
complexity of enumeration and of algebraic
computation, and the theory of parallel and
distributed computing.
Designed and patented the Verea Direct Multiplier,
1875, 1875 Verea, Ramón
the first mechanical direct multiplier.
Made key contributions to the development
1950~ Wang An
of magnetic core memory.
1955, 1960s, Ware, Willis Co-designer of JOHNNIAC. Chaired committee that
1974 developed the Code of Fair Information Practice and
led to the Privacy Act of 1974. Vice-chair of the
Privacy Protection Study Commission.
1964, 1966 Weizenbaum, Joseph One of the fathers of modern artificial intelligence.
Achievement
Person Achievement
date

Creator of the ELIZA program using natural

language processing to emulate conversations with
a psychologist.
Wijngaarden, Adriaan Developer of the W-grammar first used in the
1968
van definition of ALGOL 68
Built the first practical stored program computer
(EDSAC) to be completed and for being credited
1949 Wilkes, Maurice
with the ideas of several high-level programming
language constructs.
Research in numerical analysis to facilitate the use of
the high-speed digital computer, having received
1970 Wilkinson, James H.
special recognition for his work in computations
in linear algebra and "backward" error analysis.[58]
Designed the Pascal, Modula-
1970, 1978 Wirth, Niklaus
2 and Oberon programming languages.
Fundamental contributions to the theory of
computation, including the complexity-based theory
2000 Yao, Andrew
of pseudorandom number generation, cryptography,
and communication complexity.
Developed an early fully transistorized computer,
1955–1958 Zemanek, Heinz the Mailüfterl. Crucial in the creation of the formal
definition of the programming language PL/I.
Built the first digital freely programmable computer,
the Z1. Built the first functional program-controlled
computer, the Z3.[59] The Z3 was proven to be Turing-
1938, 1945 Zuse, Konrad
complete in 1998. Produced the world's first
commercial computer, the Z4. Designed the first
high-level programming language, Plankalkül.

~ Items marked with a tilde are circa dates.

See also[edit]

 Biography portal

 Lists portal

 Computer Pioneer Award

 IEEE John von Neumann Medal
 Grace Murray Hopper Award
 List of computer science awards
 List of computer scientists
 List of Internet pioneers
 List of people considered father or mother of a field §
Computing
 List of Russian IT developers
 List of Women in Technology International Hall of
Fame inductees
 The Man Who Invented the Computer (2010 book)
 Timeline of computing
 Turing Award
 Women in computing

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Sources[edit]
 Hamming, Richard W. (1950). "Error detecting and
error correcting codes" (PDF). Bell System Technical
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External links[edit]
 Pioneers of Computing from the Virtual Museum of
Computing
 Internet pioneers

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 Science pioneers
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