Friends, Colleagues Plan Tribute to Jim Gray

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 2. Jan., 2008 – Three organizations dedicated to the advancement of computing science, IEEE Computer Society, ACM, and UC Berkeley, today announced they will join the family and colleagues of Jim Gray in hosting a tribute to the legendary computer science pioneer, missing at sea since 28 Jan., 2007. 

The tribute will be held on 31 May at UC Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall. The general session will be held from 9-10:30 a.m., followed by technical sessions that will require registration. Registration and other information can be found at: http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/ipro/jimgraytribute

Gray is known for his groundbreaking work as a programmer, database expert and Microsoft engineer. Gray’s work helped make possible such technologies as the cash machine, ecommerce, online ticketing, and deep databases like Google. In 1998, he received the ACM A.M. Turing Award, the most prestigious honor in computer science. He was appointed an IEEE Fellow in 1982, and also received IEEE Charles Babbage Award.

“It is important to note that this is a tribute, not a memorial,” said Mike Olson, Oracle’s vice president of embedded technologies. “Many people in our industry, including me, are deeply indebted to Jim for his intellect, his vision, and his unselfish willingness to be a teacher and a mentor.”

“Jim was a true visionary and leader in this field,” said Shankar Sastry, dean of the College of Engineering at UC Berkeley. ‘We are honored to host this tribute to Jim’s remarkable achievements and the impact he made on so many of us.”

Speakers at the tribute will address the attributes and accomplishments that contributed to Gray’s world renowned reputation.

• Joe Hellerstein, professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, will give the tribute’s opening remarks.
• Leading therapist and researcher Pauline Boss will speak on understanding ambiguous loss.
• Mike Olson, vice president of Embedded Technologies at Oracle, will discuss the search effort for Gray.
• Mike Harrison, professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley, will explore Gray’s impact on Berkeley.
• Microsoft Architect Pat Helland will speak about Gray as a mentor to his colleagues, while Ed Lazowska, who holds the Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, will discuss Gray’s capacity as a mentor for faculty and students.
• Mike Stonebraker, professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley, will discuss why Gray received so many awards.
• Finally, David Vaskevitch, Microsoft’s senior vice president and CTO for Business Platform, and Rich Rashid, Microsoft’s senior vice president of research, will speak about Gray’s contributions to the computing industry.

Gray attended the University of California, Berkeley from 1961-1969 and earned the university’s first PhD in Computer Science. Over the course of his career, Gray worked as a researcher at Bell Labs, IBM, Tandem Computers, Digital Equipment Corporation, and finally Microsoft, where he was hired in 1995. When Gray joined Microsoft, he convinced the company to open a research center in San Francisco so that he and his wife, Donna, wouldn’t have to move to Redmond, Wash.

At Microsoft, he built a website called Terra Server, which brought high-resolution satellite imagery to the masses seven years before Google Earth, and SkyServer, the most widely used astronomical resource in the world.

Jim Gray disappeared without a trace on a sailing trip to the Farallon Islands on January 28, 2007.