Jim Gray (computer scientist)

Infobox_Scientist
name = James Nicholas "Jim" Gray


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birth_date = 1944
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nationality = American
ethnicity =
field = Computer Science
work_institution = IBM
Tandem Computers
DEC
Microsoft
alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley
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prizes = Turing Award
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James Nicholas "Jim" Gray (born 1944, lost at sea January 28, 2007) was an American computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1998 "for seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation."

Biography

Gray studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his B.S. in Engineering Mathematics (Math and Statistics) in 1966 and his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1969. He was the first recipient of a Ph.D. from Berkeley's Computer Science Department.

Gray pursued his career primarily working as a researcher and software designer at a number of industrial companies, including IBM, Tandem Computers, and DEC. He was a Technical Fellow for Microsoft Research in San Francisco, beginning in 1995.

Work

Gray contributed to several major database and transaction processing systems, including the System R while at IBM, TerraServer-USA and Skyserver for Microsoft. Among his best known achievements are granular database locking, two-tier transaction commit semantics, and the data cube operator for data warehousing applications. He also helped in the development of Virtual Earth. [ [http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=43 An Interview with Jim Gray] June 2003, Interviewed by David A. Patterson] [ [http://www.sigmod.org/sigmod/record/issues/0303/Gray_SIGMOD_Interview_Final.pdf Interview with Jim Gray] by Marianne Winslett, for ACM SIGMOD Record, March 2003 as part of Distinguished Database Profiles] [ [http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=168181 Interview] on MSDN Channel 9, Behind the Code, March 3, 2006] [ [http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/05/30/jim_gray/ Interview] by Mark Whitehorn for The Register 30 May 2006]

Disappearance at sea and search

During a short solo sailing trip to the Farallon Islands near San Francisco to scatter his mother's ashes, his 40-foot yacht, Tenacious, was reported missing on Sunday, January 28, 2007. The Coast Guard searched for four days using a C-130 plane, helicopters, and patrol boats but found no sign of the vessel.cite news | date = January 29, 2007 | url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/29/BAGB5NR0GL6.DTL | title = Coast Guard searches for missing SF boater: 63-year-old man failed to return from trip to Farallon Islands | work = San Francisco Chronicle] cite news | date = January 30, 2007 | url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/30/BAGGTNR93G1.DTL&type=printable | title = Sea search for missing Microsoft scientist: No sign of S.F. man who set out alone for Farallon Islands in 40-foot sailboat | work = San Francisco Chronicle] cite news | date = January 31, 2007 | url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/BAGTONS9084.DTL&type=printable | title = Search for missing sailor extends to Humboldt | work = San Francisco Chronicle] cite news | date = January 31, 2007 | url = http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/01/31/MNGPMNRVD137.DTL&type=printable | title = Vast search off coast for data wizard | work = San Francisco Chronicle]

However, Gray's boat was equipped with an automatically deployable EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon), which should have deployed and begun transmitting the instant his vessel sank. The area around the Farallon Islands where Gray was sailing is also well north of the East-West ship channel used by freighters entering and leaving San Francisco Bay. The weather was clear that day and no ships reported striking his boat, nor were any distress radio transmissions reported.

On February 1, 2007, the DigitalGlobe satellite did a scan of the area, generating thousands of images.cite news | date = February 3, 2007 | url = http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/03/technology/03search.html?ex=1328158800&en=e58764b50c8a4508&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss | title = Silicon Valley’s High-Tech Hunt for Colleague | work = New York Times] The images were posted to Amazon Mechanical Turk in order to distribute the work of searching through them, in hopes of spotting his boat.

On February 16 2007, the Friends of Jim Gray Group suspended their search, [cite news | date = February 16, 2007 | url = http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/02/16/state/n181516S21.DTL&hw=jim+gray&sn=001&sc=1000
title = Friends of missing computer scientist suspend search for him | work = San Francisco Chronicle] but continue to follow any important leads. The family ended its search May 31 2007. The massive high-tech effort did not reveal any new clues. [ [http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-08/ff_jimgray Inside the High-Tech Hunt for a Missing Silicon Valley Legend] , Wired Magazine (August 2007)] [ [http://www.mturk.com/mturk/preview?groupId=J0XZ58STDWJZ5QY4F9M0 Amazon Mechanical Turk volunteer project to help locate Jim Gray] ] [ [http://www.openphi.net/tenacious/ Blog for people trying to locate Jim Gray] ] [ [http://www.helpfindjim.com/index.html Help Find Jim] Information to help locate Jim Gray] [ [http://www.helpfindjim.com/printposter.html Print a MISSING Poster] Hang a MISSING Poster in Southern California and Mexico.]

The University of California, Berkeley hosted a tribute to Gray and his life on May 31, 2008. The conference included sessions delivered by Richard Rashid and David Vaskevitch. [ [http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/IPRO/JimGrayTribute/ Jim Gray Tribute website] ] Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope software is dedicated to Gray. In 2008, Microsoft announced the opening of a research center in Madison, Wisconsin, to be named after Jim Gray [ [http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2008/apr08/04-23DeWitt.mspx Database Pioneer Joins Microsoft to Start New Database Research Lab] ] .

Books

* "Transaction Processing: Concepts and Techniques" (with Andreas Reuter) (1993) ISBN 1558601902
* "The Benchmark Handbook: For Database and Transaction Processing Systems" (1991). Morgan Kaufman. ISBN 9781558601598

ee also

*List of people who have disappeared

References

External links

* [http://research.microsoft.com/~Gray/ Gray's Microsoft Research home page]
* [http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=339 Oral History Interview with Jim Gray] at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
* [http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=4918&fID=570 Video] Behind the Code on ResearchChannel, interviewed by Barbara Fox, 2005
* [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/30/jim_gray_tribute/ Tribute] by Mark Whitehorn for The Register April 30, 2007
* [http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/080528.html EE380: The Search for Jim Gray] , Panel Discussion at Stanford University ( [http://stanford-online.stanford.edu/courses/ee380/080528-ee380-300.asx video archive] ) May 28, 2008
* [http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/IPRO/JimGrayTribute/pressrelease.html Tribute] by IEEE Computer Society, ACM, and UC Berkeley to honor Jim Gray ( [http://www.sigmod.org/record/jimgray Proceedings] ) May 31, 2008

Persondata
NAME= Gray, James Nicholas "Jim"
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION= American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH= 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=
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