Jerre Noe

Jerre Noe (February 1, 1923 – November 12, 2005) was an American computer scientist. In the 1950s, he led the technical team for the ERMA project, the Bank of America's first venture into computerized banking. In 1968 he became the first chair of the University of Washington's Computer Science Group, which later evolved into the Computer Science and Engineering Department.^[1][2][3]

Biography

Early life

Noe was born in McCloud, California. He received a Bachelors degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Stationed in Europe during World War II, he conducted research and development related to radar, before returning to California to complete a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at Stanford University.^[1]

Career

During the 1950s, Noe served as the Assistant Director of Engineering at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), during which time he led the technical team for the ERMA project. Noe and the ERMA team were honored by SRI in 2001 with the Weldon B. Gibson Achievement Award for their work.^[1]

In 1968 he was recruited by the University of Washington to chair its newly founded Computer Science Group, a role in which he continued until 1976. Initially, this was mainly a graduate department but in 1975 it introduced a baccalaureate program. In the early 1980s, Noe directed the Eden Project, the first recipient of the National Science Foundation's Coordinated Experimental Research Program award, which brought U.W. into the first rank of Computer Science departments.^[1]

Retirement

After retirement from the department in 1989, Noe continued a very active life until shortly before his 2005 death from peritoneal mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos that attacks the lining of the abdomen. He remained active in his department as a professor emeritus and in other aspects of his life; in his late seventies, he and his wife trekked approximately 100 miles (160 km) across the Basque Country. He was also an avid flautist, sailor and skier into his eighties.^[1][3]

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Jerre D. Noe First Chair of UW CSE" (obituary), Most Significant Bits, newsletter of University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering, volume 15, number 3, winter 2006; also a nearly identical obituary on the site of the U.W. CSE Department.
2. ^ The Erma Project: The Team on the SRI site: "The technical leadership of ERMA fell to Jerre Noe"
3. ^ ^{a b} Langston, Jennifer (November 14, 2005), "Jerre D. Noe, 1923-2005: He led UW's first computer program", The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, http://www.seattlepi.com/local/248284_noeobit14.html 

External links

• Obituary in The New York Times.

Persondata
Name	Noe, Jerre
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 1, 1923
Place of birth
Date of death	November 12, 2005
Place of death