List of computer scientists

This is a list of well-known computer scientists, people who do work in computer science, in particular researchers and authors.

Some persons notable as programmers are included here because they work in research as well as program. A few of these people pre-date the invention of the digital computer; they are now regarded as computer scientists because their work can be seen as leading to the invention of the computer. Others are mathematicians whose work falls within what would now be called theoretical computer science, such as complexity theory and algorithmic information theory.

A

• Hal Abelson
• Samson Abramsky
• Leonard Adleman - RSA, DNA computing
• Manindra Agrawal - Polynomial-time primality testing
• Alfred Aho - Compilers book, and the 'a' in awk
• Frances E. Allen - Compiler optimization
• Gene Amdahl
• Tom Anderson - Dependability, fault-tolerant computing
• Andrew Appel - Compilers text books
• John Vincent Atanasoff

B

• Charles Babbage - Invented first mechanical computer
• Charles Bachman
• John Backus - FORTRAN and Backus–Naur form
• David A. Bader
• Anthony James Barr - SAS System
• Rudolf Bayer - B-tree
• Gordon Bell - DEC VAX, Computer Structures
• Steven M. Bellovin - Network security
• Dines Bjørner - VDM and RAISE
• Gerrit Blaauw - one of the principal designers of the IBM System 360 line of computers
• Manuel Blum - cryptography
• Grady Booch - Unified Modeling Language, Object Management Group
• George Boole - Boolean logic
• Bert Bos - Cascading Style Sheets
• Jonathan Bowen - Z notation and formal methods
• Steve Bourne - Bourne Shell, portable ALGOL 68C compiler.
• Robert Boyer - string searching and ACL2 theorem prover
• Jack E. Bresenham - early computer graphics contributions including Bresenham's algorithm
• Per Brinch Hansen (surname "Brinch Hansen") - concurrency
• Fred Brooks - System 360, OS/360, The Mythical Man-Month, No Silver Bullet
• Rod Brooks
• Alan Burns - Real-time Systems

C

• Luca Cardelli - objects
• Edwin Catmull - Computer graphics
• Vinton Cerf - Internet, TCP/IP
• Gregory Chaitin
• Zhou Chaochen - Duration calculus
• Alonzo Church - mathematics of combinators and lambda calculus
• Edmund M. Clarke - Model checking
• John Cocke - RISC
• Edgar F. Codd - formulated the database relational model
• Gordon Cormack - co-inventor of dynamic Markov compression
• Stephen Cook - NP-completeness
• James Cooley - FFT
• Fernando J. Corbató - CTSS, Multics
• Patrick Cousot - abstract interpretation
• Seymour Cray - Cray Research, supercomputer
• Nello Cristianini - Machine Learning, Pattern Analysis, Artificial Intelligence
• Dave Cutler - RSX-11, VMS, Windows NT

D

• Ole-Johan Dahl - Simula
• Christopher J. Date - proponent of database relational model
• Dorothy Denning - security
• Peter Denning - identified the use of an operating system's working set and balance set, President of ACM
• Michael Dertouzos - Director of the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) since 1974
• Alexander Dewdney
• Vinod Dham - The so-called father of the Pentium processor.
• Whitfield Diffie - Cryptography
• Edsger Dijkstra - Algorithms Goto considered harmful Semaphore (programming)
• Jack Dongarra - Linear Algebra high performance computing
• Marco Dorigo - Ant-Colony Optimization
• Adam Dunkels - Protothreads
• Alan Dix - Literally wrote the book on HCI.

E

• Annie J. Easley
• Wim Ebbinkhuijsen - Cobol
• John Presper Eckert - ENIAC
• Philip-Emeagwali - Supercomputing
• E. Allen Emerson - Model checking
• Douglas Engelbart - computer mouse
• Andrey Ershov
• Christopher Riche Evans
• Dave Evans - computer graphics
• Shimon Even

F

• Scott Fahlman
• Edward Feigenbaum - intelligence
• Michael Feldman
• Edward Felten - security
• Tim Finin
• Raphael Finkel
• Tommy Flowers - COLOSSUS
• Robert Floyd - NP-completeness
• James D. Foley
• Ken Forbus
• Herbert W. Franke
• Daniel P. Friedman

G

• Richard Gabriel
• Zvi Galil
• Bernard Galler - MAD
• Hector Garcia-Molina
• Michael Garey - NP-Completeness
• Hugo de Garis
• David Gelernter
• Charles Geschke
• Seymour Ginsburg - Formal languages, Automata Theory, AFL Theory, Database Theory
• Kurt Gödel - Computability (although not a computer scientist per se, his work was invaluable in the field nonetheless)
• Joseph Goguen
• Adele Goldberg - Smalltalk
• Ian Goldberg - cryptographer, Assistant Professor at the School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo
• Oded Goldreich - cryptography, computational complexity theory
• Shafi Goldwasser - cryptography, computational complexity theory
• Gene Golub - Matrix (math) computation
• James Gosling - NeWS, Java
• Paul Graham
• Susan L. Graham - Compilers, programming environments
• Jim Gray - Database
• Ralph Griswold - SNOBOL
• Ramanathan V. Guha - RDF, Netscape, RSS (file format), Epinions
• Neil J. Gunther - Computer performance analysis and capacity planning
• Peter G. Gyarmati - Adaptivity in operating systems and networking

H

• Philipp Matthäus Hahn - mechanical calculator
• Joseph Halpern
• Richard Hamming - Hamming code, founder of the Association for Computing Machinery
• Juris Hartmanis - computational complexity theory
• Johan Håstad - computational complexity theory
• Les Hatton - Software Failure and Vulnerabilities
• Martin Hellman
• John L. Hennessy - Computer architecture
• Danny Hillis - Connection Machine
• Geoffrey Hinton
• C. A. R. Hoare - Logic, rigor, CSP
• John Henry Holland - Genetic Algorithms
• Herman Hollerith - Developed the first punch card machines for a forerunner of IBM
• John Hopcroft - Compilers
• Admiral Grace Hopper - Compilers, COBOL
• Alston Householder
• David A. Huffman - Huffman code

I

• Jean Ichbiah - Ada programming language
• Kenneth E. Iverson - APL (programming language)

J

• Ivar Jacobson - Unified Modeling Language, Object Management Group
• Ramesh Jain
• Jonathan James
• David S. Johnson
• Stephen C. Johnson
• Cliff Jones - VDM
• Michael I. Jordan
• Bill Joy - Sun Microsystems, BSD UNIX, vi, csh

K

• William Kahan
• Robert E. Kahn - TCP/IP
• Avinash Kak
• Alan Kay - Dynabook, Smalltalk
• Richard Karp - NP completeness
• Narendra Karmarkar - Karmarkar's algorithm
• Jacek Karpinski
• Marek Karpinski - NP Optimization Problems
• John George Kemeny - BASIC
• Ken Kennedy - Compiling for parallel and vector machines
• Brian Kernighan - Unix, and the 'k' in awk
• Carl Kesselman - grid computing
• Stephen Cole Kleene - Kleene closure, recursion theory
• Donald Knuth - The Art of Computer Programming, TeX, Literate programming
• Andrew Koenig - C++
• David Korn - Korn shell
• Kees Koster - ALGOL 68
• John Koza - Genetic programming
• Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov
• Robert Kowalski
• Thomas E. Kurtz - BASIC

L

• Monica S. Lam
• Leslie Lamport - Algorithms for concurrency
• Butler W. Lampson
• Peter J. Landin
• Joshua Lederberg
• Manny M Lehman - Laws of Software Evolution
• Douglas Lenat - Artificial intelligence, Cyc
• Leonid Levin - computational complexity theory
• J.C.R. Licklider
• David Liddle
• Barbara Liskov - Programming languages
• Ada Lovelace - first programmer
• Nancy Lynch

M

• Zohar Manna - Fuzzy logic
• John Mashey
• Yuri Matiyasevich - solving Hilbert's tenth problem
• John McCarthy - Lisp programming language, Artificial intelligence
• Douglas McIlroy - pipes
• Chris McKinstry - Artificial intelligence, Mindpixel
• Marshall Kirk McKusick - BSD, Berkeley Fast File System
• Lambert Meertens - Algol68, ABC programming language
• Bertrand Meyer - Eiffel
• Silvio Micali - cryptography
• Robin Milner - ML
• Marvin Minsky - Artificial intelligence, perceptrons, Society of Mind
• Dr. Paul Mockapetris - Domain Name System (DNS)
• Cleve Moler - numerical analysis and MATLAB
• Edward F. Moore - Moore machine
• Gordon Moore - Moore's law
• J Strother Moore - string searching and ACL2 theorem prover
• Hans Moravec
• Joel Moses - Macsyma
• Stephen Muggleton

N

• Mihai Nadin - Anticipation research
• Frieder Nake - Pioneer in computer arts
• Peter Naur - BNF, Algol 60
• Roger Needham
• Bernard de Neumann - Massively parallel autonomous cellular processor, software engineering research
• John von Neumann - Early computers, von Neumann machine
• Allen Newell - Artificial intelligence, Computer Structures
• Max Newman - COLOSSUS and MADM
• Nils Nilsson - Artificial intelligence
• Jerre Noe
• Emmy Noether
• Peter Nordin - Artificial intelligence, genetic programming, and evolutionary robotics
• Donald Norman - User interfaces and usability
• George Novacky - Assistant Department Chair and Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, Assistant Dean of CAS for Undergraduate Studies at University of Pittsburgh
• Kristen Nygaard - Simula

O

• Mark Overmars - games programming

P

• Christos Papadimitriou
• Kamran Parsaye - Intelligent Databases
• David A. Patterson
• Judea Pearl - Artificial intelligence, Search
• Alan Perlis - Programming Pearls
• Radia Perlman - Spanning-tree protocol
• Simon Peyton Jones - Functional programming
• Gordon Plotkin
• Amir Pnueli - temporal logic
• Willem van der Poel - computer graphics, robotics, geographic information systems, imaging, multimedia, virtual environments, and games
• Emil Post - mathematics
• Jon Postel - Internet
• Franco Preparata

Q

R

• Michael O. Rabin - Nondeterministic machines
• T. V. Raman - Accessibility, Emacspeak, etc.
• Brian Randell - dependability
• Raj Reddy - AI
• David P. Reed
• John C. Reynolds
• Joyce K. Reynolds - Internet
• Adam Riese
• Dennis Ritchie - C, UNIX
• Ron Rivest - RSA
• Azriel Rosenfeld
• Guido van Rossum - Python programming language
• Rudy Rucker - Writer, Educator
• Steven Rudich - Complexity Theory, Cryptography
• Jeff Rulifson
• James Rumbaugh - Unified Modeling Language, Object Management Group

S

• Jean E. Sammet - Programming languages
• Carl Sassenrath - Operating systems, Programming languages, Amiga, REBOL
• Wilhelm Schickard
• Bruce Schneier
• Dana Scott - domain theory
• Michael L. Scott - Programming Languages, Algorithms, Distributed Computing
• Ravi Sethi - Compilers, 2nd Dragon Book
• Adi Shamir - RSA
• Claude Shannon - information theory
• David E. Shaw - Computational finance, computational biochemistry, parallel architectures
• Scott Shenker - networking
• Edward H. Shortliffe - MYCIN (Medical diagnostoc expert system)
• Joseph Sifakis - Model checking
• Herbert Simon - Artificial intelligence
• Daniel Sleator - Splay tree, Amortized Analysis
• Robert Sproull
• Richard Stallman - GNU Project
• Richard Stearns - computational complexity theory
• Guy L. Steele, Jr. - Scheme, Common Lisp
• Thomas Sterling - Creator of Beowulf clusters
• Christopher Strachey - denotational semantics
• Michael Stonebraker - relational database practice and theory
• Bjarne Stroustrup - C++
• Madhu Sudan - computational complexity theory, coding theory
• Gerald Jay Sussman - Scheme
• Bert Sutherland - Graphics, Internet
• Ivan Sutherland - Graphics

T

• Andrew S. Tanenbaum - Operating systems, Minix
• Robert Tarjan - splay tree
• Larry Tesler - human-computer interaction, graphical user interface, Apple Macintosh
• Avie Tevanian - Mach kernel team, NeXT, Mac OS X
• Ken Thompson - Unix
• Walter F. Tichy - RCS
• Seinosuke Toda - Computation complexity, recipient of 1998 Gödel Prize
• Linus Torvalds - Kernel - Linux
• Joseph F Traub - computational complexity of scientific problems
• John Tukey - FFT
• Alan Turing - British pioneer, Turing Machine

U

• Jeffrey D. Ullman - Compilers, databases, Complexity theory

V

• Leslie Valiant - computational complexity theory, computational learning theory
• Andries van Dam - computer graphics, hypertext
• Srinidhi Varadarajan - System X: VirginiaTech's Power Mac G5 Supercluster

W

• Philip Wadler - Functional programming
• David Wagner - Cryptography
• Larry Wall - Perl programming language
• James Z. Wang
• Kevin Warwick - AI
• Jan Weglarz
• Peter J. Weinberger - Programming language design, the 'w' in awk
• Joseph Weizenbaum - AI, ELIZA
• Adriaan van Wijngaarden - Dutch pioneer; ARRA, ALGOL
• Maurice Vincent Wilkes - Microprogramming, EDSAC
• Yorick Wilks - Computational linguistics, Artificial Intelligence
• Manfred K. Warmuth - Computational Learning Theory
• James H. Wilkinson - Numerical analysis
• Sophie Wilson
• Shmuel Winograd - Coppersmith-Winograd algorithm
• Terry Winograd - AI, SHRDLU
• Niklaus Wirth - Pascal, Modula, and Oberon languages
• Stephen Wolfram - Mathematica
• William Wulf - Compilers

X

Y

• Tao Yang
• Alec Yasinsac - security
• Andrew Chi-Chih Yao

Z

• Lotfi Zadeh - Fuzzy logic
• Egon Zakrajšek - Slovenian pioneer
• Konrad Zuse - German pioneer of hardware and software

See also

• List of programmers
• List of important publications in computer science
• List of computing people

External links

• Most cited authors in computer science