Trustee

David J. Farber (1934–2026) was a renowned computer scientist whose work influenced distributed systems, early networking, and Internet policy. He served as Professor Emeritus at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helped build one of the nation's leading computer science departments and conducted foundational research in distributed computing, email systems, and communications protocols. Farber passed away on February 7, 2026, in Tokyo, Japan, at the age of 91.

Gerald Estrin was a computer scientist and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), known for his influential work in computer architecture and reconfigurable computing. At UCLA he led the Machine Instruction Set Computer (MISC) and later the “reconfigurable processor” projects, both of which explored modular architectures and the idea that computer hardware could dynamically adapt itself to the needs of software—concepts that anticipated later developments in parallel processing and programmable hardware.

Esther Dyson is an investor, journalist, author, and philanthropist whose career has spanned the formative decades of the digital age. After studying economics at Harvard University, where she wrote for The Harvard Crimson, she began her professional life at Forbes, quickly rising from fact-checker to reporter. She later moved into Wall Street analysis, covering technology and emerging companies, before taking on a more entrepreneurial role in the tech industry.

Peter J. Denning is a leading computer scientist, educator, and author whose work spans operating systems, performance analysis, and the foundations of computing as a discipline. He is a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, where he chairs the Computer Science Department and directs the Cebrowski Institute for Information Innovation.

Duncan G. Copeland is an information-systems strategist and consultant whose work has bridged academia and industry. He is president of Copeland & Company, a Washington-area consultancy that has advised senior management at financial institutions and large enterprises on the strategic use of information technology.

William T. “Bill” Coleman III (1947–2020) was a Silicon Valley software visionary and entrepreneur whose companies helped define enterprise infrastructure in the client-server and Internet eras. He co-founded BEA Systems in 1995 and served as its chairman and chief executive officer as the company’s middleware and application-server products became central components in large-scale enterprise systems.

James C. Castle (d. November 11, 2015) was a technology executive and board director whose career has spanned information systems, financial services, and transaction-processing industries. He is President and Chief Executive Officer of Castle Information Technologies, an information-technology and board-of-directors consulting firm that advises companies on large-scale systems strategy and governance.

John F. Carlson (1938–2006) was an American business executive best known for leading supercomputer manufacturer Cray Research Inc. during a pivotal period in its history. Born in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, he studied at Saint Mary’s University in Winona, Minnesota, and began his career as a certified public accountant with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. in 1964.

Walter F. Bauer was a mathematician, digital computing pioneer, and one of the first entrepreneurs to build a large independent software company. In 1962 he founded Informatics General Corporation, which grew into one of the world’s largest software firms of its era.

Charles W. Bachman was a pioneering software engineer whose work helped establish the modern concept of the database management system. While at General Electric in the early 1960s, he led the development of the Integrated Data Store (IDS), one of the first commercial database management systems and a foundation for the CODASYL network data model. IDS introduced ideas—such as navigational access paths and layered architectures—that shaped mainframe data processing for decades.