Co-developer of the BASIC programming language, Kemeny transformed computing by making it accessible to ordinary people.
Kemeny entered Princeton University, where he studied mathematics and philosophy, but he took a year off during his studies to work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. His boss there was Richard Feynman, and he also worked there with John von Neumann. Returning to Princeton, Kemeny graduated with his B.A. in 1947, then worked for his doctorate under Alonzo Church. He worked as Einstein's mathematical assistant during graduate school.
Kemeny was awarded his doctorate in 1949 for a dissertation entitled "Type-Theory vs. Set-Theory." He was appointed to the Dartmouth Mathematics Department in 1953, and two years later became chairman of the Department, holding this post until 1967. Kemeny served as president of Dartmouth from 1970 to 1981, and continued to teach undergraduate courses and to do research and publish papers during his time as president. In 1982 he returned to teaching full time.
Kemeny and Kurtz pioneered the use of computers for ordinary people. After early experiments with the LGP-30, they invented the BASIC programming language in 1964, as well as one of the world's first timesharing systems, the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS). In 1983, Kemeny and Kurtz co-founded a company called True BASIC, Inc. to market True BASIC, an updated version of the language.
