- Philip Emeagwali
Philip Emeagwali (born in 1954) is an Igbo
Nigeria n-borncomputer scientist /geologist who was one of two winners of the 1989Gordon Bell Prize , a prize from theIEEE , for his use of theConnection Machine supercomputer – a machine featuring over 65,000 parallel processors – to help analyze petroleum fields.Biography
Awards
Emeagwali received the $1,000 [ [http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19970012353_1997018248.pdf Gordon Bell Prize Lectures] ] 1989
Gordon Bell Prize , based on an application of the CM-2 massively-parallel computer for oil-reservoir modeling. He won in the "price/performance" category, with a performance figure of 400 Mflops/$1M, corresponding to an absolute performance of 3.1 Gflops. (The winning entry in the "peak performance" category that year – coincidentally also for oil-related seismic data processing on a CM-2 – actually achieved 6 Gflops, or 500 Mflops/$1M, but the judges decided not to award both prizes to the same team.) [ [http://www.sc2000.org/bell/pastawrd.htm Gordon Bell Prize winners 1987-1999] ] This simulation was the first program to apply a pseudo-time approach to reservoir modeling. [http://emeagwali.com/society/society-for-industrial-and-applied-mathematics/SIAM-news-oil-industry-problem.html Both Gordon Bell Prize Winners Tackle Oil Industry Problems] , SIAM News 23(3), 1990; excerpted on Emeagwali's Web site.]Apart from the prize itself, there is no evidence that Emeagwali's work was ever accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, nor that it had any other lasting impact on the field of high-performance computing. [As of May 2007, none of the [http://dblp.uni-trier.de/ Computer Science Bibliography] , the [http://citeseer.csail.mit.edu/ CiteSeer Research Index] , nor [http://scholar.google.com/ Google Scholar] contain any record of either scientific publications by Emeagwali himself, or documented uses of his methods and results by other researchers in academia or industry.] Nevertheless, based on the Bell Prize, he has since received numerous further awards [ [http://emeagwali.com/awards/awards.html Awards list at emeagwali.com, with photos] ] , ranging from one from the
World Bank -IMF Africa Club to being voted the "35th-greatest African of all time" in a survey by "New African " magazine. [ [http://www.africasia.com/newafrican/na.php?ID=385&back_month=36 "Your 100 Greatest Africans of all time", "New African", August 2004] ] His achievements were quoted in a speech byBill Clinton as an example of what Nigerians could achieve when given the opportunity. [ [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8228484564915781123 Bill Clinton, "Remarks to a Joint Session of the Nigerian National Assembly in Abuja", August 2000] ( [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2889/is_35_36/ai_67645146/pg_5 transcript] )]Court case
Emeagwali studied for a Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan from 1987 through 1991. His thesis was not accepted by a committee of internal and external examiners and thus he was not awarded the degree. Emeagwali filed a court challenge, claiming that the decision was a violation of his civil rights and that the university had discriminated against him in several ways because of his race. The court challenge was dismissed, as was an appeal to the Michigan state Court of Appeals. [ [http://www.michbar.org/opinions/appeals/1999/102999/5473.html Michigan Appeals Court decision, "Emeagwali v. University of Michigan", October 1999] ( [http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0DXK/22_16/58614840/p1/article.jhtml summary article] )]
References
External links
* [http://edition.cnn.com/fyi/interactive/specials/bhm/story/black.innovators.html "Innovators Who Break Barriers", CNNfyi.com, February 9, 2001]
* [http://www.time.com/time/2007/blackhistmth/bios/04.html "Philip Emeagwali: A Calculating Move", "TIME" Black History Month feature, February 8, 2007]
* [http://www.emeagwali.com emeagwali.com] - Emeagwali's personal website.
* [http://supernaturalminds.com/PhilipEmeagwali.html SupernaturalMinds.com: Philip Emeagwali] - biographical sketch from Stephen Palmer's Tesla fansite inReno, NV
* [http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/cezeilo/2003nov09.html "Self-Promotion and Self-Authentication: the Abuse of Cyber Pseudo-Anonymity. Part II: 'Father of the Internet'", "BiafraNigeriaWorld", November 2003] - an article that highly critically examines Emeagwali's claims, describing them as "disingenuous"
* [http://www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions/emeag.html Philip Emeagwali myths] - another critical analysis
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