Event Archives : 2006 - 40 Years of Computer Science

Panelists will discuss various aspects of the early years and the development of the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. Each panelist was responsible for establishing major activities in the department and leading the department through major transitions. We will hear from them some of the anecdotes and nuances involved in building a great department.

• William F Miller (Moderator)
  Herbert Hoover Professor of Public and Private Management Emeritus; Codirector of the Strategic Uses of Information Technology Executive Program
• Edward Feigenbaum
  Kumagai Professor of Computer Science Emeritus
• Gene Golub
  Fletcher Jones Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering
• Donald E Knuth
  Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming
• John McCarthy
  Emeritus Professor of Computer Science
• Nils Nilsson
  Kumagai Professor of Engineering, Emeritus

This session will include short presentations and discussion among alumni with distinguished academic careers. From their personal point of view, speakers will talk about their time at Stanford and their subsequent careers, emphasizing the events, ideas, and developments that were important to them. We will hear about their research interests and how they evolved, as well as their accomplishments. They will discuss their personal visions about the future of their chosen fields and the future of computer science as a whole.

• John C Mitchell (Session Chair)
  Mary and Gordon Crary Family Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University
• Rodney Brooks
  Panasonic Professor of Robotics and Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
• Barbara Liskov
  Ford Professor of Engineering in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
• Raj Reddy
  Mozah Bint Nasser University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University
• Ron Rivest
  Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Margaret Wright
  Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics and Chair of the Computer Science Department in the Courant Institute at New York University

In this panel, current Stanford Computer Science faculty will discuss the future of their field, telling us what major accomplishments we can expect during the next 10 years. They will also forecast what challenging unsolved problems will remain in 10 years.

• Hector Garcia-Molina (Session Chair)
  Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• Dan Boneh
  Associate Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering
• William Dally
  Willard R. & Inez Kerr Bell Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
• Daphne Koller
  Associate Professor of Computer Science
• Sebastian Thrun
  Associate Professor of Computer Science & Director of the AI Laboratory
• Jennifer Widom
  Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Looking back and looking forward. A conversation about the impact of the Stanford Computer Science Department on Silicon Valley and the world.

• John Markoff (Moderator)
  Adjunct Faculty, Stanford Dept. of Communication, & Senior Writer for The New York Times & Business Day
• Andy Bechtolsheim
  Chief Architect and Senior Vice President, Network Systems, Sun Microsystems
• James H Clark
  Founder of Silicon Graphics, Netscape, Healtheon, & MyCFO
• David Filo
  Co-Founder and Chief Yahoo, Yahoo! Inc.
  
• Mark Horowitz
  Professor of Electrical Engineering and of Computer Science, Stanford University
  Cadence Design Systems Director of the Computer Systems Laboratory
  The Yahoo! Founders Professor of Engineering
  Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Rambus, Inc.
• Mendel Rosenblum
  Associate Professor of Computer Science and, by courtesy, of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
  Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of VMware, Inc.
• David Shaw
  Founder & Chairman of D.E. Shaw, Inc.
• Jerry Yang
  Co-Founder and Chief Yahoo, Yahoo! Inc.

Professor John Hennessy

Speaker Biography:
John L. Hennessy joined Stanford's faculty in 1977. He was named the Willard and Inez Kerr Bell Endowed Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1987.

From 1983 to 1993, Dr. Hennessy was director of the Computer System Laboratory, a research and teaching center operated by the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science that fosters research in computer systems design. He served as chair of computer science from 1994 to 1996 and, in 1996, was named dean of the School of Engineering. As dean, he launched a five-year plan that laid the groundwork for new activities in bioengineering and biomedical engineering. In 1999, he was named provost, the university's chief academic and financial officer. As provost, he continued his efforts to foster interdisciplinary activities in the biosciences and bioengineering and oversaw improvements in faculty and staff compensation.

A pioneer in computer architecture, in 1981 Dr. Hennessy drew together researchers to focus on a computer architecture known as RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), a technology that has revolutionized the computer industry by increasing performance while reducing costs. In addition to his role in the basic research, Dr. Hennessy helped transfer this technology to industry. In 1984, he cofounded MIPS Computer Systems, now MIPS Technologies, which designs microprocessors. In recent years, his research has focused on the architecture of high-performance computers.

Dr. Hennessy is a recipient of the 2000 John Von Neumann Medal, the 2000 ASEE R. Lamme Medal, the 2001 Eckert Mauchly Award and the 2001 Seymour Cray Award. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences, and he is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association for Computing Machinery, and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

He has lectured and published widely and is the co-author of two internationally used undergraduate and graduate textbooks on computer architecture design. Dr. Hennessy earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University and his master's and doctoral degrees in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.