Pioneers in Computer Science
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Butler W. Lampson
Internet Agedistributed computingoperating systems

Butler W. Lampson

Butler W

1943 – presentU.S.AContribution: 1992

Introduction

Butler W. Lampson (born 1943) is an American computer scientist and recipient of the Turing Award. He has made significant contributions to the fields of distributed computing, operating systems, and computer security. Lampson played a key role in the development of pioneering systems like Alto, Ethernet, and the Xerox PARC distributed computing environment.

Key Achievement

Development of distributed, personal computing environments and the technology for their implementation: workstations, networks, operating systems, programming systems, displays, security and document publishing.

Biography

Butler W. Lampson is an American computer scientist best known for his contributions to the development and implementation of distributed personal computing. He won the 1992 ACM Turing Award.

Awards

ACM Software System Award1984
honorary doctor of ETH Zürich1986
Turing Award1992
ACM Fellow1994
Computer Pioneer Award1995
IEEE John von Neumann Medal2001
Charles Stark Draper Prize2004
Foreign Member of the Royal Society2018
Honorary doctor of the University of Bologna
Computer History Museum Fellow

Institutions

PARC

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Microsoft

Digital Equipment Corporation

Education

Harvard University

University of California, Berkeley