Celebrating Pioneers in Computer Science
*Available on display in the Computer Science Atrium*
Ada Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852)
English mathematician who wrote an algorithm for a computing machine in the mid-1800s. She has been called ‘the first computer programmer’.
Alan Mathison Turing (23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954)
English mathematician and computer scientist. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science and artificial intelligence. He formalised the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine.
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi (780-850)
Persian mathematician and astronomer, known as the father of Algebra and presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations. His best-known work was revising Ptolemy's Geography, listing the longitudes and latitudes of various cities and localities. He also made important contributions to trigonometry, producing accurate sine and cosine tables, and the first table of tangents.
Annie Easley (23 April 1933 – 25 June 2011)
American computer scientist, rocket scientist and mathematician. She was one of the first African Americans to work at NASA. Her work there included crucial contributions to the development and implementation of code used in researching energy-conversion systems as well as the Centaur rocket project.
Hedy Lamarr (9 November 1914 – 19 January 2000)
Austro-Hungarian-born American actress and inventor. She had a successful film career in Europe and Hollywood. Then in the 1940s she co-invented a new communication system to guide torpedoes to their targets. This became the basis of modern Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth systems.
Maryam Mirzakhani (12 May 1977 – 14 July 2017)
Iranian mathematician. Her research pioneered advances to the theory of moduli spaces and Riemann surfaces. In 2014 she became the first Iranian to be awarded a prestigious Fields Medal.
Mary Ann Horton (21 November 1955 – Present)
American computer scientist. She invented uuencode, which was the forerunner to e-mail attachments, and led the growth of Usenet, an early social media network, in the 1980s. She is also a transgender campaigner and educator.
Tim Berners Lee (8 June 1955 – Present)
British computer scientist. He is best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web, publishing the first website in December 1990. In addition to various professorial positions, he now directs the World Wide Web Consortium.
Bob John (12 August 1955 – 17 February 2020)
British computer scientist. He pioneered the use of ‘type-2 fuzzy sets’ in computational intelligence. From 2013 onwards, he was a highly valued member of the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham.
Lotfi Aliasker Zadeh (4 February 1921 – 6 September 2017)
Azerbaijani-born American mathematician and computer scientist. He is best known for proposing fuzzy mathematics. His research in this area has had a major influence on the development of artificial intelligence.