Comp. Sci. Superheroes

Raj Reddy

Raj Reddy was born on June 13, 1937 in India. he has a Bachelor's degree from the Guindy College of Engineering (1958), Madras, & a Master's degree from University of New South Wales, Sydney (1960). He also received a Master's degree (1964) & a doctorate (1966) in computer science from Stanford University, where he also became a computer science Assistant Professor. Afterwards, he founded the Robot Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh (1979-1991). He also served as co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. Some awards that he obtained were the Legion of Honour (1984), Padma Bhushan (2001), the Turing Award (1994) & many more. Some of his major contributions to Computer Science was speech recognition & the interaction of humans & computers. An interesting fact I learned about him was that DENDRAL, one of his first major success, took him over 10 years to create
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Alan Turing

Alan Turing was born on June 23, 1912, in England, & died on June 7th, 1954, in England. He went to a private school & then entered the University of Cambridge studying math (1931). He then was elected to a fellowship at King's college from his research in probability theory. His paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" was going to be published by Alonzo Church, who published a paper with the same conclusion as Turing, but with a different method. Later, he moved to Princeton University to study under Church. He then went to help during the wartime with code-breaking the German ciphers & made major advances in cryptanalysis. Overall, the most interesting thing I found about Tering was he was known widely as the father of modern computer science.
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Marc Hannah

Electrical engineer and computer graphics designer Marc Regis Hannah was born on October 13, 1956, in Chicago, Illinois to his two parents, Hubert, an accountant, and Edith, a teacher, who emphasized education with their five children. Marc did well in school, especially in math and science. He got a scholarship from AT&T's Bell Labs to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, graduating with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1977. He then attended Stanford University earning an M.S. in 1978 and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering in 1985. While at Stanford, He worked with Jim Clark, a professor of engineering. In 1982, along with five other partners, they founded Silicon Graphics, Inc. in Mountain View, California. The company attracted over "$30 million in venture capital support, largely stemming from Clark's invention of the "Geometry Engine," a computer chip/ processor that improved 3D image manipulation, allowing a computer user to easily see an image from multiple angles. Some of his selected awards are Professional Achievement Award, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1987; Professional Achievement Award, National Technical Association, 1987. In 1982, Hannah co-founded Silicon Graphics, Inc. (SGI) with Jim Clark and five others. In 1986, he was named the company's 'principal scientist' for creating computer programs like Personal IRIS, Indigo, Indigo2, and Indy graphics that were used to create effects for movies like Jurassic Park, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Hunt for Red October, and Field of Dreams. George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic used Silicon Graphics' technology to create Terminator 2. Marc Hannah's programs have also been used to create television commercials and the opening introduction for Monday Night Football. The company's technology was used in engineering, research, and for military applications.
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