Biographical Information

A.1 General Background:

Fernando J. Corbató was born July l, 1926 in Oakland, California.

Professor Corbató’s background includes the following:

  • ACM National Lecturer – 1964.
  • Associated with the M.I.T (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Computation Centre 1956 – 66.
  • Member of the Computer Science and Engineering Board of the National Academy of Science 1970 – 73.
  • Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – 1975.
  • Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences – 1975.
  • Elected to the National Academy of Engineering – 1976.
  • Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science – 1982.

A.2 Academic Background:

Professor Corbató’s academic background includes the following

  • B.S. degree from the California Institute of Technology – 1950.
  • Ph.D. from M.I.T. in Physics – 1956.
  • Appointed to Associate Professor – 1962.
  • In 1963 he was a founding member of the Laboratory for Computer Science (formerly Project MAC)
  • Promoted to Professor – 1965.
  • Associate Department Head for Computer Science and Engineering during 1974-78 and 1983-93.

A.3 Industry Honours:

Professor Corbató has received the following awards

  • The W. W. McDowell Award presented by the Computer Group of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers for his work in the development of time-sharing systems – 1966.
  • The Harry Goode Memorial Award presented by the American Federation of Information Processing Societies for his pioneering efforts in the development of time-shared computer systems.
  • A charter recipient of the Computer Pioneer Award which was established by the IEEE Computer Society to recognise and honour the vision of those people whose efforts resulted in the creation and continued vitality of the electronic computer industry -1982.
  • The Alan M. Turing Award, presented by the Association for Computing Machinery “for his pioneering work in organising the concepts and leading the development of the general-purpose, large-scale, time-sharing and resource-sharing computer systems, CTSS and Multics.” – 1990.
  • The Computers & Communication (C&C) Prize from the NEC Corporation Foundation for C&C Promotion “for his groundbreaking work in establishing the basic concepts of modern operating systems.” – 1998.