Honor Roll
| Name Sort descending | Noted For | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Lee de Forest | Inventor of the audion triode, audio and radio pioneer | Inventor of the audion triode and audio and radio pioneer, De Forest had an interest in wireless telegraphy and invented the Audion in 1906. He then developed an improved wireless telegraph… |
| Lee E. McMahon | Contributor to the creation of UNIX | Contributor to early versions of the Unix operating system, including the sed stream editor, McMahon worked for Bell Labs from 1963 until 1989. McMahon was a computer scientist who… |
| Lee Felsenstein | Designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass produced portable computer | Designer of the Osborne 1, the first mass-produced portable computer, Felsenstein is recognized for his work in reducing the costs of computer technologies to make them available to large markets… |
| Leo F. Slattery | Designer of memory capacity for mainframe computers | Designer of memory capacity for mainframe computers, Slattery was one of the earliest members of Control Data Corporation (CDC). Born and raised in St. Paul, MN, he graduated from Cretin… |
| Leo Fantl | Pioneers of Business Computing | One of the first to join the LEO computing team as a programmer, Fantl was responsible for the planning and programming of some of the earliest business data processing applications. |
| Léon Bollée | Inventor of the first calculating machine | Inventor of the first calculating machine, Bollée began work in 1887 on three calculating machines: the Direct Multiplier, the Calculating Board, and the Arithmographe. Bollée's Multiplier was the… |
| Leon D. Harmon | Codeveloper of the Photomosaic - a photographic mosaic, which is a picture that has been divided into rectangular sections, each of which is replaced with another photograph that matches the target photo; also, developed computerized human-face identification | Codeveloper of the Photomosaic and pioneer of computerized human-face identification, Harmon worked at Bell Labs where he pursued research in human perception, computer vision, and graphics. He… |
| Leonard Bosack | He pioneered the commercialization of routing technology and the profound changes this technology enabled in the computer industry | Pioneer of commercialization of routing technology and co-founder of Cisco Systems, Bosack received the Computer Entrepreneur Award in 2009 for pioneering and advancing the commercialization of… |
| Leonard J. Shustek | Founder, Computer History Museum | Founder of the Computer History Museum, Shustek co-founded Nestar Systems Inc., an early producer of networked client-server computer systems, in 1979. In 1986, Dr. Shustek co-founded Network… |
| Leonard Kleinrock | Known as a "Father of the Internet” | Known as a "Father of the Internet," Kleinrock is an American engineer and computer scientist who made several important contributions to the field of computer networking, in particular to the… |
| Leonard Max Adleman | Co-founder of RSA cryptosystem | Co-inventor of the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) cryptosystem, Adleman is a theoretical computer scientist and professor of computer science and molecular biology at the University of Southern… |
| Leonardo Torres y Quevedo | Developed the Telekino which consisted of a robot that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves - a pioneer in the field of remote control | Pioneer in remote control technology, Torres y Quevedo developed the Telekino — a robot that executed commands transmitted by electromagnetic waves — presenting it at the Paris Academy of Science… |
| Leonid Anatolievich Levin | Noted for his work in randomness computing, algorithmic complexity and intractability | Co-discoverer of the Cook-Levin Theorem, Levin is noted for his work in randomness computing, algorithmic complexity, and intractability. This NP-completeness theorem was a basis for one of the… |
| Leonid Genrikhovich Khachiyan | Known for his Ellipsoid Algorithm for linear programming | Known for his Ellipsoid Algorithm for linear programming, Khachiyan proved the existence of an efficient way to solve linear programming problems thought to be intractable until that time. His… |
| Leopold Kronecker | Contributor to the concept of continuity; one of the core concepts of topology, reconstructing the form of irrational numbers in real numbers | A contributor to the concept of continuity and the reconstruction of irrational numbers in real numbers, Kronecker was a German mathematician who worked on number theory and algebra. He was born… |
| Leslie Berlin | Author and noted IT historian | Author and noted IT historian, Berlin has served as Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University. She wrote *The Man Behind the Microchip: Robert Noyce and the… |
| Leslie John Comrie | He was an astronomer and a pioneer in mechanical computation | Pioneer in mechanical computation and astronomy, Comrie was also the founder of the world's first private company for scientific computing. He was born in Pukekohe (south of Auckland), New… |
| Leslie Lamport | Known for his seminal work in distributed systems and as the initial developer of the document preparation system LaTeX | Known for his seminal work in distributed systems and as the initial developer of LaTeX, Lamport is a prominent computer scientist and mathematician. A graduate of the Bronx High School of… |
| Lester (Les) Donald Earnest | Developer of the "first pen-based computer system that reliably recognized cursive writing" and the first spell checker | Developer of the "first pen-based computer system that reliably recognized cursive writing" and the first spell checker, Earnest began his career as a computer programmer in 1954 during a stint as… |
| Lewis Fry Richardson | Known for his pioneering work on fractals and a method for solving a system of linear equations | Pioneer of fractals and the modified Richardson iteration method for solving systems of linear equations, Richardson was also an English mathematician, physicist, meteorologist, psychologist, and… |
| Lewis Terman | Initiated the first work in IBM on MOSFET memory and was involved in the program that led to the first IBM MOSFET memory product | Initiator of the first work in IBM on MOSFET memory, Terman was also involved in the program that led to the first IBM MOSFET memory product. Born in San Francisco, his father was a… |
| Li-Shiuan Peh | Developer and builder of self-regulating power-aware interconnection networks that trade off power and performance automatically - a system that would reconcile the design goals of high- performance and low-power usage | Developer and builder of self-regulating power-aware interconnection networks that trade off power and performance automatically, Peh is recognized for work that would reconcile the design goals… |
| Liane Tarouco | Brazilian Internet Development Pioneer | A pioneer in the development of the Internet in Brazil, Tarouco educated a generation of engineers and network specialists across that country, South America, Europe, and Africa. She authored the… |
| Liang-Jie (LJ) Zhang | Lead architect for the IBM HotVideo HyperVideo technology allowing a user to make choices based on the content of the video and the user's interests | Lead architect for IBM HotVideo HyperVideo technology, Zhang is a computer scientist formerly at IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he served as a Research Staff Member (RSM) and Program… |
| Lillian F. Schwartz | Computer Art Pioneer | Considered a pioneer of computer-mediated art, Lillian F. Schwartz was one of the first artists to base almost her entire body of work on computational media. Much of her groundbreaking work was… |
| Ling Liu | Head of research group that has produced a number of open-source software systems, including: WebCQ, XWRAPElite, PeerCrawl, GTMobSIM, and SHAPEi | Head of the Distributed Data Intensive Systems Lab (DiSL) research group at Georgia Institute of Technology, Liu is known for producing a number of open-source software systems, including WebCQ,… |
| Linus Benedict Torvalds | Creator of Linux | Creator of the Linux kernel and key catalyst of the open source movement, Torvalds initiated one of the most influential software projects in history. |
| Lionardo di ser Piero da Vinci | Among other conceptualizations, he designed a calculator | Among those who designed a calculator, da Vinci stands as one of history's most remarkable minds — an Italian polymath regarded as the epitome of the "Renaissance Man", displaying skills in… |
| Lionel Kattner | Contributor to the development of the first planar integrated circuit and founder of Signetics Corporation | Contributor to the development of the first planar integrated circuit and co-founder of Signetics Corporation, Kattner is recognized as a key figure in early semiconductor history. A graduate of… |
| Lisa McVey | Serial Killer Survivor Detective | Abducted at age seventeen by serial killer Bobby Joe Long, McVey provided police with information that directly led to his capture and went on to build a 30-year career in law enforcement inspired… |
| Lisa P. Jackson | First Black EPA Administrator | The first African American to serve as administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, Jackson held that position from 2009 to 2013, following her nomination by President-elect… |
| Lisa T. Su | AMD Chair And CEO | Inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame in 2021, Su became Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Since taking the helm in 2014, she led a major transformation of the… |
| Lixia Zhang | Co-Founded Internet Engineering Task Force | A co-founder of the Internet Engineering Task Force, Lixia Zhang was the Jonathan B. Postel Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. She designed the Resource… |
| Lois Haibt | The only female member of the ten person team that invented FORTRAN | The only female member of the ten-person team that invented FORTRAN, Haibt is an American computer scientist perhaps most famous for her role in creating the first successful high-level… |
| Lorinda Cherry | Unix Mathematical Tools Developer | A longtime member of the original Unix Lab at Bell Labs, Cherry devoted much of her career to developing mathematical tools and utilities for text formatting and analysis, and influenced the… |
| Lotfi Askar Zadeh | Best known for his theory of fuzzy logic | Best known for his theory of fuzzy logic, Zadeh proposed using a membership function (with a range covering the interval [0,1]) operating on the domain of all possible values. He proposed new… |
| Louis N. Ridenour | Co-patented an information storage system which combined optical disk storage of large capacity and a magnetic drum memory of low capacity which was a write-once-read-many optical disk memory which would be updated monthly, and recently changed data was held on the re-writable magnetic drum memory | Co-patentee of an early hybrid optical-magnetic information storage system, Ridenour also served as Vice President of Lockheed and as an advisor to President Eisenhower. In 1941 he became the… |
| Louis Pouzin | Invented the datagram and designed the first packet communications network | Invented the datagram and designed the first packet communications network, CYCLADES, Pouzin also created the first forms of command-line interface. His work was broadly used by Robert Kahn,… |
| Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. | Former CEO, IBM | Former CEO of IBM, Gerstner is largely credited with turning around IBM's fortunes. He was chairman of the board and chief executive officer of IBM from April 1993 until 2002, when he… |
| Luanne James Johnson | Founder of Argonaut Information Systems in 1971 which originally sold Payroll and Accounts Payable applications and a member of the Software History Museum | Founder of Argonaut Information Systems in 1971, which originally sold Payroll and Accounts Payable applications and was later purchased by Ross Systems. In an article in the IEEE Annals in… |
| Luba Cherbakov | Co-inventor and chief evangelist behind the development and deployment of the Service-Oriented Modeling and Architecture (SOMA), the industry's first SOA modeling method | Co-inventor and chief evangelist behind Service-Oriented Modeling and Architecture (SOMA), the industry's first SOA modeling method, Cherbakov is also a 2012 IBM Fellow — the 13th woman (and among… |
| Lubomir Georgiev Iliev | Pioneer of computing in Bulgaria and of abstract mathematics | Pioneer of computing in Bulgaria and of abstract mathematics, Iliev was born in Samokov. He graduated from Sofia University in 1908, became a professor in 1925, and earned a PhD in Mathematical… |
| Lubomyr T. Romankiw | Co-inventor of a technique that produced the first practical and manufacturable thin film magnetic head, which increased the density of data stored on magnetic disks and dramatically reduced the cost of data storage | Co-inventor of a technique that produced the first practical and manufacturable thin film magnetic head, Romankiw helped increase the density of data stored on magnetic disks and dramatically… |
| Luciano Lenzini | Director of the initiative which led to the operation of the first Internet node in Italy | Director of the initiative which led to the operation of the first Internet node in Italy, Lenzini has served as a Full Professor at the Information Engineering Department of the University of… |
| Lucinda (Lucy) M. Sanders | First as a leading scientist as Bell Labs, later as one increasing the talent pool in the computing field | Bell Labs Fellow and CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women and Information Technology, Sanders has worked to expand the talent pool in the computing field while building on a… |
| Luke Nosek | Co-founder of PayPal and creator of the company's "instant transfer" product | Co-founder of PayPal and creator of the company's "instant transfer" product, Nosek is a Polish-born American entrepreneur. He received a B.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of… |
| Lydia E. Kavraki | Known for research in robotics, bioinformatics and algorithms | Known for research in robotics, bioinformatics, and algorithms, Kavraki left Greece to pursue a PhD in computer science at Stanford University. Drawn to the human potential of robotics, Kavraki… |
| Lyman Chapin | Principal architect of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model and protocols | Principal architect of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model and protocols, Chapin is widely recognized as a leader in the networking industry and the Internet community, having contributed… |
| Lynda Weinman | Founder of Lynda.com | Founder of lynda.com, a pioneering online software training website, Weinman built the platform with her husband, Bruce Heavin, before LinkedIn acquired it in April 2015 for $1.5 billion. A… |
| Lynn Conway | Noted for the Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design in electronic automation | Pioneer of the Mead and Conway revolution in VLSI design, Conway transformed the field of electronic chip design and automation. Conway joined Xerox PARC in 1973, where she led the "LSI… |
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