John L. Hennessy

Infobox Scientist
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name = John L. Hennessy

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residence = United States
citizenship = American
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fields = Computer architecture
workplaces = Stanford University
alma_mater = State University of New York at Stony Brook
Villanova University
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footnotes = :"For other people named John Hennessy, see John Hennessy."

John LeRoy Hennessy is an American computer scientist and academic. Hennessy is the founder of MIPS Computer Systems Inc. and is the 10th President of Stanford University.

Background

He earned his Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University, and his Master's degree and Ph.D. in computer science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Hennessy became a Stanford faculty member in 1977. In 1984, he used his sabbatical year to found MIPS Computer Systems Inc. to commercialize his research in RISC processors. In 1987, he became the Willard and Inez Kerr Bell Endowed Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

Hennessy served as director of Stanford's Computer System Laboratory (1989-1993), a research center run by Stanford's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science departments. He was chair of the Department of Computer Science (1994-1996) and Dean of the School of Engineering (1996-1999).

In 1999, Stanford President Gerhard Casper appointed Hennessy to succeed Condoleezza Rice as Provost of Stanford University. When Casper stepped down to focus on teaching in 2000, the Stanford Board of Trustees named Hennessy to succeed Casper as president. As Stanford's president, Hennessy earns an annual salary of $566,581.

In 1997, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM.

Hennessy is a member of the executive committee of the Council on Competitiveness.

Hennessy joined the board of Google, in exchange for 65,000 shares of the company; at the time of Google's IPO, his shares were worth over $7 million.fact|date=May 2008 He is also a board member of Cisco Systems, Inc. [cite web|url=http://investor.cisco.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=81192&p=irol-govboard |title=Governing Board |publisher=Cisco Systems] , Atheros Communications, [cite web|url=http://investors.atheros.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=149102&p=irol-govboard |title=Governing Board |publisher=Atheros Communications] and the Daniel Pearl Foundation.cite web |url= http://www.danielpearl.org/ |title= The Daniel Pearl Foundation. |format= html |work= [http://www.danielpearl.org/about_us/index.html About the Daniel Pearl Foundation] |quote= ]

Research

Hennessy has a history of strong interest and involvement in college-level computer education. He co-authored, with David A. Patterson, two well-known books on computer architecture, "Computer Organization and Design: the Hardware/Software Interface" and "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", which introduced the DLX RISC architecture. They have been widely used as textbooks for graduate and undergraduate courses since 1990.fact|date=May 2008

Hennessy also contributed to updating Donald Knuth's MIX processor to the MMIX. Both are model computers used in Knuth's classic series, "The Art of Computer Programming". MMIX is Knuth's DLX equivalent.

Noted publications

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References

External links

* [http://www.stanford.edu/dept/president/biography/ Official Biography from the Office of the President of Stanford University]
* [http://edcorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=922&author=139 The Secret of Silicon Valley] , John Hennessy speaks at Stanford