Acclaimed for his work in High Performance Computing (HPC), Gustafson is most known for the invention of Gustafson's Law, introducing the first commercial computer cluster, measuring with QUIPS, and leading the reconstruction of the Atanasoff–Berry Computer. He has served as Director of Intel Labs-SC, CEO of Massively Parallel Technologies, Inc., and CTO at ClearSpeed Technology.
After completing a degree in Applied Mathematics at California Institute of Technology in 1977, Gustafson moved to Ames, Iowa and completed his M.S. (1981) and Ph.D. (1982) at Iowa State University. His parents encouraged his scientific explorations at a young age. Assembling radio transmitters, designing and executing chemistry experiments, and making holograms were some of his favorite childhood explorations, adding up to over 1000 lab hours before college.
Among his awards are: the 2007 IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Award; the 2006 International Atanasoff Award (inaugural); the Iowa State University Inventor of the Year Award in 2000; the R&D 100 Award in 1989, 1991, & 1995; and in 1988 his parallel computing breakthrough was read into the U.S. Congressional Record. Gustafson also received the Gordon Bell Prize (inaugural), recognizing the greatest annual contribution to the science of parallel processing, as well as the 1988 Karp Challenge — a unique award for the first demonstration of parallel speedup of over 200 times.
