Thomas Eugene Kurtz

Thomas Eugene Kurtz (born February 22, 1928) is an American computer scientist who co-developed the BASIC programming language in 1963/64 together with John George Kemeny.

In 1951, Dr. Kurtz’s first experience with computing came at the Summer Session of the Institute for Numerical Analysis at UCLA. His interests have included numerical analysis, statistics, and computer science ever since.

Dr. Kurtz graduated from Knox College in 1950, and received his Ph. D. from Princeton University in 1956, where his advisor was John Tukey, and joined the Mathematics Department of Dartmouth College that same year. In 1963/64, Dr. Kurtz and Kemeny developed the first version of the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System, a time-sharing system for university use, and the BASIC [B] language.

From 1966-1975, Dr. Kurtz served as Director of the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth, and from 1975-1978, Director of the Office of Academic Computing. From 1980-1988 Dr. Kurtz was Director of the Computer and Information Systems program at Dartmouth, a ground-breaking multidisciplinary graduate program to develop IS leaders for industry. Subsequently Dr. Kurtz returned to teaching full-time as a Professor of Mathematics, with an emphasis on statistics and computer science.

Dr. Kurtz has also served as Council Chairman and Trustee of EDUCOM, as well as Trustee and Chairman of NERComP, and on the Pierce Panel of the President's Scientific Advisory Committee. Dr. Kurtz also served on the steering committees for the CONDUIT project and the CCUC conferences on instructional computing. In 1991, the Computer Society honored Dr. Kurtz with the Computer Pioneer Award and in 1994 he was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.