Prof. Barbara Liskov Selected to Receive the 2018 IEEE Computer Society’s Computer Pioneer Award

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 16 February 2018 – Barbara Liskov, Institute Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been named to receive the IEEE Computer Society’s 2018 Computer Pioneer Award.

The award is given for significant contributions to early concepts and developments in the electronic computer field, which have clearly advanced the state-of-the-art in computing. Liskov is being recognized “for pioneering data abstraction, polymorphism, and support for fault tolerance and distributed computing in the programming languages CLU and Argus."  

Liskov’s research interests include distributed and parallel systems, programming methodology, and programming languages.

Liskov is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and National Inventors Hall of Fame.  She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, ACM, and a charter fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

In 2003, Liskov was named one of the 50 most important women in science by Discover Magazine.  She was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2012.

She received the 2008 ACM Turing Award, the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Language Achievement Award in 2008, the IEEE John von Neumann medal in 2004, and a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Women Engineers in 1996.

Liskov received a B.A. degree from University of California, Berkeley, and earned her M.S. degree and Ph.D. from Stanford University, becoming one of the first women granted a doctorate in computer science in the United States.

The Computer Pioneer Award was established in 1981 by the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors to recognize and honor the vision of those whose efforts resulted in the creation and continued vitality of the computer industry. The award is presented to outstanding individuals whose main contribution to the concepts and development of the computer field was made at least 15 years earlier.

The award will be presented at the 2019 Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) held in conjunction with SEMICON West in San Francisco, 9–11 July 2019.

The award consists of a silver medal and an invitation to speak at the award presentation.

Recipients of the award include Frances Allen, Grady Booch, Edgar Codd, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Feigenbaum, Tony Hoare, Robert Kahn, Jack Kilby, Dennis Ritchie, and David Wheeler.  Learn more information about the Pioneer Award, including a list of all past recipients.