John McCarthy (computer scientist)
John McCarthy | |
|---|---|
McCarthy at a conference in 2006 | |
| Born | September 4, 1927 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died | October 24, 2011 (aged 84) Stanford, California, U.S. |
| Education | California Institute of Technology (BS) Princeton University (MS, PhD) |
| Known for | Artificial intelligence, Lisp, circumscription, situation calculus |
| Spouse(s) | Vera Watson (her death, 1978) Carolyn Talcott |
| Awards | Turing Award (1971) Computer Pioneer Award (1985) IJCAI Award for Research Excellence (1985) Kyoto Prize (1988) National Medal of Science (1990) Benjamin Franklin Medal (2003) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer science |
| Institutions | Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, Princeton University |
| Doctoral advisor | Donald C. Spencer |
| Doctoral students | Ruzena Bajcsy Ramanathan V. Guha Barbara Liskov Hans Moravec Raj Reddy |
John McCarthy (September 4, 1927 – October 24, 2011) was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He was one of the founders of the discipline of artificial intelligence, and part of just a small group of artificial intelligence researchers in the 1950s and 1960s. He co-authored the proposal for the Dartmouth workshop which coined the term "artificial intelligence" (AI), led the development of the symbolic programming language family Lisp and had a large influence in the language ALGOL, popularized time-sharing, and created garbage collection.
McCarthy spent most of his career at Stanford University. He received many accolades and honors, such as the 1971 Turing Award for his contributions to the topic of AI, the United States National Medal of Science, and the Kyoto Prize.