This is a list of people who made transformative breakthroughs in the creation, development and imagining of what computers could do.
Pioneers
Achievementdate Person Achievement 1977 Adleman, LeonardCo-invented the RSA algorithm with Ron Rivest and Adi Shamir, making public-key cryptography useful in practice. 1944 Aiken, Howard Conceived and co-designed the Harvard Mark I. 830~ Al-Khwarizmi The term algorithm is derived from the algorism, the technique of performing arithmetic with Hindu–Arabic numerals popularised by al-Khwarizmi in his book On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals. 1970, 1989 Allen, Frances E. Developed bit vector notation and program control-flow graphs; first female IBM Fellow (1989); first female recipient of the ACM's Turing Award (2006). 1954, 1964, 1967Amdahl, GenePioneer of mainframe computing; designed IBM 704; chief architect of IBM System/360. Formulated Amdahl's law; also worked on IBM 709 and IBM 7030 Stretch. 1939 Atanasoff, John Built the first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff–Berry Computer, though it was neither programmable nor Turing-complete. 1822, 1837 Babbage, Charles Originated the concept of a programmable general-purpose computer; designed the Analytical Engine and built a prototype for a less powerful mechanical calculator, often called "Father of the Computer". 1973 Bachman, CharlesOutstanding contributions to database technology. 1954, 1963 Backus, John Led the team that created FORTRAN (Formula Translation), the first practical high-level programming language, and formulated the Backus–Naur form that described the formal language syntax. 850~ Banū Mūsā Three brothers who wrote the Book of Ingenious Devices, describing what appears to be the first programmable machine, an automatic flute player. 1960–1964Baran, PaulOne of two independent inventors of the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet. Published a series of briefings and papers about dividing information into "message blocks" and sending them over distributed networks (1960–1964). 1874 Baudot, ÉmileFrench telegraphic engineer; patented the Baudot code, the first means of digital communication. The modem speed unit baud is named after him. 1960s Bauer, Friedrich L. Proposed the stack for expression evaluation, with Edsger W. Dijkstra. Influential in establishing computer science as an independent discipline of science; coined the term software engineering. Contributed to numerical analysis, fundamentals of interpretation and translation of programming languages, systematics of program development, program transformation, and cryptology. 1953Bellman, Richard E.American applied mathematician who introduced dynamic programming (1953) 2018 Bengio, Yoshua; Hinton, Geoffrey; Lecun, Yann Conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing 1989, 1990 Berners-Lee, Tim Invented the World Wide Web and sent the first HTTP communication between client and server. 1995 Blum, ManuelContributions to the foundations of computational complexity theory and its application to cryptography and program checking 1981 & 1986 Boehm, Barry Invented parametric cost modeling (which he called "Constructive Cost Model") for software and software-intensive systems (COCOMO). Invented the spiral method of software development (spiral model). 1847, 1854 Boole, George Formalized Boolean algebra, the basis for digital logic and computer science. 1966 Böhm, Corrado Theorized of the concept of structured programming. 1947 Booth, Kathleen Invented the first assembly language. 1969, 1978 Brinch Hansen, PerDeveloped the RC 4000 multiprogramming system, which introduced the concept of an operating system kernel and the separation of policy and mechanism; effectively the first microkernel architecture. Co-developed the monitor with Tony Hoare, and created the first monitor implementation. Implemented the first form of remote procedure call in the RC 4000, and was first to propose remote procedure calls as a structuring concept for distributed computing. 1959, 1995 Brooks, Fred Manager of IBM System/360 and OS/360 projects; author of The Mythical Man-Month. 1908 Brouwer, Luitzen Egbertus Jan Founded intuitionistic logic, which later came to prevalent use in proof assistants. 1954 Burks, Arthur Proposed Reverse Polish Notation with Don Warren and Jesse Wright in 1954, unaware of Konrad Zuse's earlier use of postfix notation in his Z3 in 1941, and later independently reinvented by Friedrich L. Bauer and Edsger W. Dijkstra for use with stacks. 1930 Bush, VannevarAnalogue computing pioneer; originator of the Memex concept, which led to the development of Hypertext 1951 Caminer, David With John Pinkerton, developed the LEO computer, the first business computer, for J. Lyons and Co 1974 Catmull, Edwin Computer generated imagery (CGI) and 3D graphics pioneer who developed texture mapping, the Catmull-Clark subdivision surface algorithm (with Jim Clark), and the Catmull-Rom spline (with Raphael Rom. Former vice president of Industrial Light & Magic and co-founder of and former president of Pixar 1978 Cerf, Vint With Bob Kahn, designed the Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the primary communication protocols of the Internet and other computer networks. 1956 Chomsky, Noam Made contributions to computer science with his work in linguistics. Developed Chomsky hierarchy, directly impacting programming language theory and other branches of computer science. 1936 Church, Alonzo Made fundamental contributions to theoretical computer science, specifically in the development of computability theory in the form of lambda calculus. Independently of Alan Turing, formulated what is now known as the Church-Turing Thesis and proved that first-order logic is undecidable. 1962 Clark, Wesley A. Designed LINC, the first functional computer scaled down and priced for individual users (1963). Many of its features are considered prototypes of essential elements of personal computers. 1981 Clarke, Edmund M. Developed model checking and formal verification of software and hardware, with E. Allen Emerson. 1987 Cocke, JohnSignificant contributions to compiler design and theory, the architecture of large systems, and the development of reduced instruction set computers (RISC) 1970 Codd, Edgar F. Proposed and formalized the relational model of data management, the theoretical basis of relational databases 1971 Conway, Lynn Superscalar architecture with multiple-issue out-of-order dynamic instruction scheduling 1967 Cook, Stephen Formalized the notion of NP-completeness, inspiring a great deal of research in computational complexity theory 1965 Cooley, James With John W. Tukey, created the fast Fourier transform 1944 Coombs, AllenDesigned and built the Mark II Colossus computers; superseded the Mark I version (which was the world's first digital, electronic computing device) 1989 Corbató, Fernando J.Pioneering work organizing the concepts and leading the development of the general-purpose, large-scale, time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems CTSS and Multics 1964–1996 Cray, Seymour Designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades; and founded Cray Research, which built many of them; credited with creating the supercomputer industry 1978, 1993 Cutler, David N. Major pioneer of operating-system design through his work at Digital Equipment Corporation and Microsoft, where he was lead engineer of the VMS and Windows NT kernels (respectively) 1962 Dahl, Ole-Johan With Kristen Nygaard, invented the proto-object oriented language SIMULA 1965Davies, DonaldOne of two independent inventors of the concept of digital packet switching used in modern computer networking including the Internet. Conceived of and named the concept for data communication networks (1965–66).; Many of the wide-area packet-switched networks of the 1970s, including ARPANET, were similar "in nearly all respects" to his original 1965 design. 1976 Diffie, WhitfieldFundamental contributions to modern cryptography. Diffie and Hellman's groundbreaking 1976 paper "New Directions in Cryptography" introduced the ideas of public-key cryptography and digital signatures, the foundation of security protocols used on the Internet today. 1968 Dijkstra, Edsger W. Pioneered the shortest path algorithm; coined the term structured programming; invented the semaphore; famously suggested that the GOTO statement should be considered harmful 2006 Duda, Jarosław Introduced first Asymmetric numeral systems entropy coding 1918 Eccles, William and Jordan, Frank Wilfred Patented the Eccles–Jordan trigger circuit,William Henry Eccles and Frank Wilfred Jordan, "Improvements in ionic relays" British patent number: GB 148582 (filed: 1918-06-21; published: 1920-08-05). Available on-line at: http://v3.espacenet.com/origdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=GB148582&F=0&QPN=GB148582 . the so-called "bistable flip-flop", a building block of all digital memory cells. Built from vacuum tubes, their concept was essential for the success of the Colossus codebreaking computer. 1943, 1951 Eckert, J. Presper With John Mauchly, designed and built ENIAC, the first modern (all electronic, Turing-complete) computer; and UNIVAC I, the first commercially available computer 1981 Emerson, E. Allen Developed model checking and formal verification of software and hardware, with Edmund M. Clarke 1963 Engelbart, Douglas Best known for inventing the computer mouse, with Bill English; pioneer of human–computer interaction whose Augment team developed hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs 1971 Faggin, Federico Designed the first commercial microprocessor, Intel 4004 1994 Feigenbaum, EdwardPioneering the design and construction of large-scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology 1974 Feinler, Elizabeth Led team that defined a simple text file format for Internet host names, which became the Domain Name System; her group became the naming authority for the top-level domains of .mil, .gov, .edu, .org, and .com 1943 Flowers, Tommy Designed and built the Mark I Colossus computer, the world's first programmable, digital, electronic, computing devices 1978 Floyd, Robert W. Had a clear influence on methodologies for the creation of efficient and reliable software; helped to found these important sub-fields of computer science: theory of parsing, semantics of programming languages, automatic program verification, automatic program synthesis, and analysis of algorithms 1994 Floyd, Sally Founded the field of Active Queue Management; co-invented Random Early Detection, used in almost all Internet routers 1879 Frege, Gottlob Extended Aristotelian logic with first-order predicate calculus independently of Charles Sanders Peirce, a crucial precursor in computability theory; also relevant to early work on artificial intelligence, logic programming 1985 Furber, Stephen Wilson, Sophie Led the creation of the ARM 32-bit RISC microprocessor 1958, 1961, 1967 Ginsburg, Seymour Proved "don't-care" circuit minimization does not necessarily yield optimal results; proved that the ALGOL programming language was context-free (linking formal language theory to the problem of compiler writing); invented AFL Theory 1931 Gödel, Kurt Proved that Peano arithmetic could not be both logically consistent and complete in first-order predicate calculus. Church, Kleene, and Turing developed the foundations of computation theory based on corollaries to Gödel's work. 1989 Goldwasser, Shafi Invented zero-knowledge proofs with Micali and Rackoff; she and Micali received the Turing Award (2012) for this and other work. 2011 Graham, Susan L. Awarded the 2009 IEEE John von Neumann Medal for "contributions to programming language design and implementation and for exemplary service to the discipline