Computer scientist.
Born at Winnipeg on 7 March 1916, he received a degree in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Manitoba (1937) and a degree in Mathematics from Brown University (1941). He taught math at Yale from 1941 to 1942 and at Stanford from 1942 to 1944. From 1944 to 1946, he studied aerodynamics at the Ames Aeronautical Laboratory at Moffett Field. He returned to Stanford as an assistant professor of mathematics in 1946, becoming an associate professor in 1949, and full professor in 1956.
In 1952, Stanford acquired its first computer, and he served as the founding Director of the Stanford Computation Center from 1953 to 1961. In 1955, he taught Stanford’s first course in computer programming and watched as its enrolment mushroomed. In 1965, he moved to the new Computer Science Department, one of the world’s first, and he helped to establish the undergraduate program in mathematical and computation sciences. He retired in 1982.
He died at Stanford, California on 16 March 2003.
Obituary, Stanford News Service, 11 April 2003.
“They will never be forgotten,” Winnipeg Free Press, 31 December 2003, pages A6-7.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 10 October 2016
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