Honor Roll

Name Sort descending Noted For Description
William (Bill) Worley Jr. Principal creator of HP's two most important computer architectures: PA-RISC (Precision Architecture - Reduced Instruction Set Computing) in the 1980s and PA-WW (Wide-Word) in the 1990s

Principal creator of HP's two most important computer architectures, Worley's work includes PA-RISC (Precision Architecture—Reduced Instruction Set Computing) in the 1980s and PA-WW (Wide-Word) in…

William (Bill) Yeager Inventor of the Network Operating System and multi-protocol sever

Inventor of the multi-protocol router and network operating system, Yeager is best known for creating a packet-switched, "Ships in the Night," multiple-protocol router in 1981, during his 20-year…

William (Danny) Daniel Hillis American inventor, entrepreneur, and author; co-founder of Thinking Machines Corporation

Co-founder of Thinking Machines Corporation, Hillis developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer he designed at MIT. He also co-founded the Long Now Foundation, Applied Minds, and…

William (Velvel) Morton Kahan For his fundamental contributions to numerical analysis. One of the foremost experts on floating-point computations. Kahan has dedicated himself to "making the world safe for numerical computations."

One of the foremost experts on floating-point computations, Kahan is recognized for his fundamental contributions to numerical analysis and has dedicated himself to "making the world safe for…

William (Will) Crowther Best known as the co-creator of Colossal Cave Adventure, a seminal computer game that influenced the first decade of game design and created a new game genre, text adventures; also, his implementation of a distributed distance vector routing system for the ARPAnet was an important step in the evolution of the Internet

Co-creator of Colossal Cave Adventure, a seminal computer game that created the text adventure genre, Crowther is also recognized for an earlier technical achievement: his implementation of a…

William (Will) Ralph Wright Develop of the computer game, SimCity which has been credited as one of the most influential computer games ever made

Creator of SimCity, one of the most influential computer games ever made, Wright is an American video game designer and co-founder of the game development company Maxis, now part of Electronic…

William Allan Wulf Designer of the BLISS programming language and developed a groundbreaking optimizing compiler for its use

Designer of the BLISS programming language and developer of a groundbreaking optimizing compiler for its use, Wulf was a computer scientist notable for his work in programming languages and…

William Aspray Noted IT historian and professor of computer sciences

Noted IT historian and professor of computer sciences, Aspray has served in senior management positions with the Charles Babbage Institute, Computing Research Association, and the Institute of…

William Bill English An American computer engineer who contributed to the development of the computer mouse while working for Douglas Engelbart at SRI International's Augmentation Research Center.

A key contributor to the development of the computer mouse, English worked alongside Douglas Engelbart at SRI International's Augmentation Research Center. He served in the US Navy until the late…

William Bradford Shockley Co-inventor of the transistor

Co-inventor of the transistor, Shockley shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain for this achievement. Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new…

William Frederick Miller Contributor to the development of the computer and its applications at Argonne

Contributor to the development of the computer and its applications at Argonne, Miller served as Director of the Applied Mathematics Division at Argonne National Laboratory beginning in 1959, and…

William Gordon Welchman One of four signatories to an influential letter, delivered personally to Winston Churchill in October 1941, asking for more resources for the code-breaking work at Bletchley Park and teacher of the first computer course at MIT

One of four signatories to an influential letter delivered personally to Winston Churchill in October 1941 asking for more resources for the code-breaking work at Bletchley Park, and teacher of…

William H. Bridge Development and research in computers and computer technology in the GE DATANET

Pioneer in the development and research of computers and computer technology in the GE DATANET, Bridge began his engineering career during the seminal years of digital computer technology. He…

William H. Davidow Computer industry executive, author, and venture capitalist

Computer industry executive, author, and venture capitalist, Davidow has been active in high-technology for more than 30 years. He has continued as an active advisor to MDV. Davidow is the author…

William Harvey Inmon Recognized by many as the father of the data warehouse

Recognized by many as the father of the data warehouse, Inmon wrote the first book, held the first conference (with Arnie Barnett), wrote the first column in a magazine, and was the first to offer…

William Hugh Murray Board member, IT History Society; Computer security pioneer

Recognized as a founder of the systems audit field and a pioneer of computer security, Murray joined IBM Research as a programmer in 1956, where he worked on such iconic systems as the first 704…

William Mark Goddard Co-inventor of the “Direct Access Magnetic Disc Storage Device”, which gave birth to the modern-day hard disk drive and is hailed as one of the most significant inventions in the computer industry

Co-inventor of the "Direct Access Magnetic Disc Storage Device," which gave birth to the modern-day hard disk drive, Goddard is hailed as a contributor to one of the most significant inventions in…

William Oughtred Credited as inventor of the slide rule in 1622

Credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622, Oughtred was the first to use two logarithmic scales sliding by one another to perform direct multiplication and division.

Oughtred also…

William R. Hoover Built CSC into one of the largest and most influential technology companies in Southern California

Chairman and President of Computer Sciences Corporation from 1975 to 1994, Hoover built CSC into one of the largest and most influential technology companies in Southern California. CSC, based in…

William Reddington Hewlett Founder of Hewlett Packard

Co-founder of Hewlett-Packard Company, Hewlett was an engineer who built one of the world's most influential technology companies alongside David Packard. He was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but…

William Seward Burroughs Invention of the adding machine - he was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame

Inventor of the adding machine, Burroughs was posthumously inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. An American inventor, born in Rochester, New York, the son of a mechanic, he worked…

William Stanley Jevons Constructed a logical machine, called the Logic Piano

Constructed a logical machine called the Logic Piano, Jevons was a pioneering figure in both logic and economics. Jevons arrived quite early in his career at the doctrines that constituted his…

William Wang Founder and CEO of Vizio, Inc.

Founder and CEO of Vizio, Inc., Wang was born and raised in Taiwan, moved to Hawaii, United States at the age of 13 and then to California at the age of 14. He attended the University of Southern…

Willis Alfred Adcock Assisted with the invention of the silicon transistor, as well as the integrated circuit

Assisted with the invention of the silicon transistor and the integrated circuit, Adcock was a Canadian-American physical chemist, electrical engineer, and university professor who also worked on…

Willis H. Ware Design of the IAS and Johnniac computers

Designer of the IAS and Johnniac computers, Ware was a senior computer scientist emeritus with the RAND Corporation (1952–present) in Santa Monica, California, with which he held various staff and…

Willis K. Drake Co-founder of Data Card Corporation, his expertise in computing and printing technology led him to envision the world’s first high speed credit card personalization system, ushering in the modern era of credit card commerce

Co-founder of Data Card Corporation, Drake envisioned and created the world's first high-speed credit card personalization system, ushering in the modern era of credit card commerce.

Born…

Winifred (Mitchell) Baker Instrumental in the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, parent organization for the developer of the Mozilla Firefox web browser

Instrumental in the creation of the Mozilla Foundation, Baker has served as Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation and Chairperson and former Chief Executive Officer of the Mozilla Corporation, a…

Winifred (Tim) Alice Asprey Early female computer pioneer; Established computer lab at Vaser

Early female computer pioneer who established the first computer science lab at Vassar College, Asprey was one of only around 200 women to earn PhDs in mathematics from American universities…

Wolfgang Roesner Architect of the Verification tools and methodologies being used across all IBM systems

Architect of the verification tools and methodologies used across all IBM systems, Roesner is a senior technical staff member in IBM's verification tools development group in Austin, Texas. His…

Xiaoyun Wang Cryptography And Mathematics Professor

A professor in the Department of Mathematics and System Science at Shandong University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wang Xiaoyun built her career at the intersection of…

Yakov Rekhter One of the leading architects and a major software developer of the NSFNET Backbone Phase II

One of the leading architects and a major software developer of the NSFNET Backbone Phase II, Rekhter also co-designed the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), the core routing protocol of the Internet…

Yale Nance Patt Introducer of the WOS module, the first complex logic gate implemented on a single piece of silicon

Introducer of the WOS module, the first complex logic gate implemented on a single piece of silicon, Patt is an American professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas…

Yanbing Li VMware Storage Business Leader

Inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame in 2018, Li built her reputation as a globally minded technology executive with leadership experience spanning the United States and China. She served as Senior…

Yevgeny Valentinovich Kaspersky Co founder of Kaspersky Lab, producer of antivirus software and computer security products

Co-founder of Kaspersky Lab, producer of antivirus software and computer security products, Kaspersky is recognized as a leading figure in information security.

Kaspersky graduated from the…

Yngvar Lundh Developer of a new form of distributed, digital PBXs, called hub technology

Developer of a new form of distributed, digital PBXs called hub technology, Lundh was a Norwegian engineer and scientist also known for bringing the Internet to Norway and developing some of the…

Yoelle Maarek First Google Israel Engineering Hire

The first engineering hire of Google Israel, Maarek established the company's development center in Haifa in 2006 and led the team that launched Google Suggest worldwide on the Google homepage in…

Yogen Dalal Member of the original Star and Ethernet development teams at Xerox

Member of the original Star and Ethernet development teams at Xerox, Dalal is also a co-author of the TCP Specification, whose team's pioneering work on the design of the TCP protocol has been…

Yoky Matsuoka Neurobotics Pioneer MacArthur Fellow

A 2007 MacArthur Fellow, Matsuoka founded Yohana, an independent subsidiary of Panasonic, and co-founded Google X. Her research at the University of Washington combined neuroscience and robotics,…

Yuanyuan (YY) Zhou CTO of PatternInsight a group which has deployed software quality and security solutions currently used by many large commercial companies

CTO of PatternInsight, a spin-off from her research group that has deployed software quality and security solutions used by many large commercial companies, Zhou co-founded the startup in 2007.…

Yvonne Claeys Brill Invented Electrothermal Hydrazine Thruster

Inventor of the Electrothermal Hydrazine Thruster (EHT/Resistojet), Brill held the patent for a fuel-efficient rocket thruster that keeps satellites in orbit. A Canadian American rocket and jet…

Yvonne Marie Andres Global E-Learning Pioneer

Among the earliest people to use the Internet to develop global e-learning opportunities for educators and students, Andrés founded the nonprofit Global SchoolNet in 1984, an international…

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