593 Douglas McIlroy
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web page M. Douglas McIlroy doug@cs.dartmouth.edu An Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Dartmouth, M. Douglas McIlroy retired in 1997 from the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Laboratories (formerly AT&T, now Lucent Technologies), where he was head of the Computing Techniques Research Department from 1965 to 1986, and thereafter was Distinguished Member of Technical Staff. Best known as the birthplace of the UNIX operating system, that department has done wide-ranging theoretical and applied research in programming languages, compilers, operating systems, design verification, algorithms, computational complexity, text processing, graphics, image processing, and computer security. In the area of computer languages, Dr. McIlroy participated in the design of PL/I, contributed to C++, and has written unusual compilers for Lisp, ALTRAN (an algebraic manipulation system), PL/I, and TMG (a compiler-compiler). Long interested in stream processing, he conceived "pipes" as realized in the UNIX operating system, invented the classic coroutine prime-number sieve, and developed algorithms for processing power series. Other research topics include text and string processing, computer cartography, theorem proving, and dynamic storage allocation. The notion of "language extension" arose from his early work in macroprocessors, and "software components" from a 1968 NATO paper. In a lighter vein, he coauthored Darwin, the first game of survival among self-reproducing programs. His more recent research has addressed multilevel security for UNIX, ultimately accurate bitmap graphics, and full-text indexing. He participated in the design and construction of the Multics operating system. To Unix he contributed many utilities and subroutines, ranging from the lowly "echo", through "diff" for file comparison, "spell" for checking spelling, and "join" for database manipulation, to "speak", the first real-time text-to-speech program. Dr. McIlroy joined Bell Laboratories in 1958 after earning a bachelor's degree in engineering physics from Cornell University and a PhD in applied mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He taught at MIT from 1954 to 1958, and was a visiting lecturer at Oxford University from 1967 to 1968. He has served the Association for Computing Machinery as national lecturer, Turing award chairman, member of the publications planning committee, and associate editor for Communications, Journal, and Transactions. He has served on the executive committee of CSNET (an evolutionary stage between the exclusive ARPANET and the public Internet), on various advisory panels to Department of Energy, Department of Defense, New Jersey Board of Higher Education, and National Science Foundation. He was an author of influential National Research Council reports on computer security ("Computers at Risk", 1990) and directions for academic computer science ("Computing the Future", 1992). He is a past officer of the New York Map Society, a founding member of WG2.3, the International Federation of Information Processing Societies working group on programming methodology, and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In his previous home town of Bernardsville, New Jersey, Dr. McIlroy served as chairman of the shade tree commission, chairman of the environmental commission, member of the planning board, and trustee of the public library. He now lives in Hanover, NH, where he serves on the conservation commission and chairs the trails committee. updated 07/25/03 |
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References:in [ACM] (1960) [ACM] CACM 3(04) April 1960 E |