John L. Hennessy facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John L. Hennessy
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Hennessy in 2024
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| 10th President of Stanford University | |
| In office September 1, 2000 – August 31, 2016 |
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| Preceded by | Gerhard Casper |
| Succeeded by | Marc Tessier-Lavigne |
| 11th Provost of Stanford University | |
| In office July 1999 – September 2000 |
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| Preceded by | Condoleezza Rice |
| Succeeded by | John Etchemendy |
| Personal details | |
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John Leroy Hennessy
September 22, 1952 Huntington, New York, U.S. |
| Education | Villanova University (BS) Stony Brook University (MS, PhD) |
| Known for | Reduced instruction set computer MIPS Technologies Atheros |
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| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Computer architecture |
| Thesis | A real-time language for small processors: design, definition and implementation (1977) |
| Doctoral advisor | Richard Kieburtz |
| Doctoral students |
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John Leroy Hennessy (born 22 September, 1952) is an American computer scientist. He is currently the chairman of Alphabet Inc., which is the parent company of Google.
Hennessy is also one of the people who started MIPS Technologies and Atheros. He served as the 10th president of Stanford University from 2000 to 2016. Many people, like Marc Andreessen, call him "the godfather of Silicon Valley" because of his big influence.
Along with David Patterson, John Hennessy received the 2017 Turing Award. This award is like the Nobel Prize for computer science. They won for their work on the reduced instruction set computer (RISC) architecture. This special way of designing computer chips is now used in almost all new computer chips.
Early Life and Education
John Hennessy grew up in Huntington, New York. He was one of six children in his family. His father was an aerospace engineer, and his mother was a teacher. His family has Irish roots, with some ancestors coming to America during the potato famine.
He studied electrical engineering at Villanova University, where he earned his bachelor's degree. Later, he earned his master's degree and a PhD in computer science from Stony Brook University.
Career and Research
Hennessy joined the faculty at Stanford University in 1977. In 1981, he started the MIPS project. This project looked into how to make RISC processors better. In 1984, he took a break from teaching to start MIPS Computer Systems Inc.. This company helped bring the technology from his research to the public.
He became a special professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1987. Hennessy also led Stanford's Computer System Laboratory from 1989 to 1993. This lab was a research center for the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. He then became the head of the Computer Science Department from 1994 to 1996. After that, he was the Dean of the School of Engineering from 1996 to 1999.
In 1999, Stanford's president, Gerhard Casper, chose Hennessy to be the Provost of Stanford University. The Provost is like a chief academic officer. When President Casper decided to step down in 2000, the Stanford Board of Trustees chose Hennessy to be the new president.
Hennessy has also been a member of the board for several important companies and foundations. These include Google (which later became Alphabet Inc.), Cisco Systems, Atheros Communications, and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He was also chosen to be part of the American Philosophical Society in 2008.
In 2010, the 14th Dalai Lama gave Hennessy a traditional scarf called a khata. This happened before the Dalai Lama gave a speech at Stanford. In December 2010, Hennessy worked with the president of Harvard University, Drew Gilpin Faust. They wrote an article asking for a law called the DREAM Act to be passed. This law aimed to help certain students.
In 2013, Hennessy became a judge for the first Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. He continued to be a judge for this important award in 2015 and 2017. In June 2015, Hennessy announced that he would leave his role as Stanford president in the summer of 2016.
In 2016, Hennessy helped start the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program. He is the first director of this program. The program has a large fund of $750 million. It helps pay for graduate students at Stanford for up to three years. The first group of 51 scholars from 21 countries started at Stanford in the fall of 2018.
In February 2018, Hennessy was named the new Chairman of Alphabet Inc., which is the company that owns Google.
Hennessy has always been very interested in computer education for college students. He wrote two famous books about computer architecture with David Patterson. These books are called Computer Organization and Design: the Hardware/Software Interface and Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach. They have been used as textbooks for many years since 1990.
Awards and Honors
John Hennessy has received many important awards for his work:
- He was chosen for the National Academy of Engineering in 1992. This was for his new ideas in computer design and software for RISC computers.
- He received the IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award in 1994.
- He became a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1997.
- He received the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement in 2001.
- He won the Association for Computing Machinery SIGARCH ISCA Influential Paper Award in 2004 for his work on computer memory systems.
- He became a Fellow of the Computer History Museum in 2007. This was for his contributions to computer education and research.
- He received the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2012. This was for his pioneering work on the RISC processor and his leadership in computer engineering and education.
- He received an honorary degree in Mathematics from the University of Waterloo in 2012.
- He became a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in the UK in 2017.
- He received the Turing Award in 2017. This was for his systematic way of designing and evaluating computer architectures.
- He won the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in 2020 for Information and Communication Technologies.
- In 2020, he received the Clark Kerr Award for his great leadership in higher education.
- In 2022, he was given the Charles Stark Draper Prize. He shared this award with Steve Furber, David Patterson, and Sophie Wilson. They were recognized for their work on inventing and developing RISC chips.
Personal Life
John Hennessy is married to Andrea Berti. They met when they were in high school.
See also
In Spanish: John L. Hennessy para niños
