Computer Science Heroes
Ivan Sutherland
Ivan Sutherland was born on May 16, 1938, and is currently 85 years old. He attended Carnagie Institute of Technology where he got a Bachelor of Science degree. He then went to get a Master of Science from The California Institute of Technology. After he went on to get a PHD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lastly, he holds honorary degrees from Harvard, The University of North Carolina, and the University of Utah. Ivan Sutherland is the man that invented the Sketchpad, which was a software system that foreshadowed the future of graphical and interactive computing. He was also one of the main rallyiers of the computing industry, that opted to build a different kind of microchip with hundreds of thousands of circuits. His greatest invention was when he invented Complementary oxide-metal semiconductor (CMOS). This invention made it possible to manufacture microchips that we use in computers, phones, gaming consoles, etc. From inventing CMOS to rallying for a new kind of microchip, Ivan Sutherland has had a very positive impact on the world of computer science.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-Sutherland
https://www.pdx.edu/electrical-computer-engineering/ivan-sutherland
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/19/technology/ivan-sutherland-superconducting-chips.html
Katherine Johnson
Catherine Johnson was born on August 26, 1918, and she passed away on February 24, 2020. She Graduated from West Virginia State College with a bachelor's degree in mathematics and French. She first started teaching kids at a primary school, she quickly started rising up the ranks working at NACA, which changed into NASA in 1958. Because of her talent she would go on to work on a male only team. Less than 2 weeks into her new position she was moved to a new branch called Maneuver loads branch of the flight research division by a superior that saw her talent. Catherine’s biggest accomplishment was being a part of the 1969 apollo 11 mission to the moon.
https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Katherine-Johnson-mathematician
John McCarthy
John McCarthy was born on September 4th, 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts, and died on October 24th, 2011, at age 84. McCarthy focused on mathematics for his undergraduate degree and PhD at Caltech and Princeton, respectively. Afterwards, he briefly taught at Stanford, Dartmouth, and the Massachusetts Institution of Technology. At MIT, he and Marvin Minsky founded the MIT Artificial Intelligence Project, the first of its kind there. Three years later, McCarthy came back to Stanford to teach mathematics. However, he transferred to the Department of Computer Science when it was opened in 1965. McCarthy was one of the most crucial figures in the study and rise of artificial intelligence, starting school programs, making programming languages, writing papers, and even coining the term "artificial intelligence" itself. LISP, a programming language McCarthy created, was once used by NASA, and is still occasionally used today. The other, Elephant 2000, had a system similar enough to having a memory that one could create chat bots with it. He also created some of the first time-sharing systems, allowing humanity to take a step towards creating the internet. John McCarthy earned numerous academic awards throughout the years, which include but are not limited to the A.M. Turing Award in 1971, the Kyoto Prize in 1988, the National Medal of Science in 1990, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal in 2003. Additionally, he earned memberships to the National Academies of Science and Engineering. Something interesting that I found while researching John McCarthy is that the person who wrote his Stanford Obituary, Nils J. Nisslon, is also a computer scientist, which in hindsight isn't too surprising (who else would write the article?). More interestingly, the author is also dead, passing away on April 23rd, 2019.
Sources:
https://cs.stanford.edu/memoriam/professor-john-mccarthy
https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-McCarthy
https://projects.csail.mit.edu/films/aifilms/AIFilms.html
https://ideaexchange.uakron.edu/honors_research_projects/622/
https://news.stanford.edu/2019/04/24/nils-nilsson-pioneer-robotics-artificial-intelligence-dies-86/