Geoffrey Charles Fox (born 7 June 1944) is a British-born American theoretical physicist and computer scientist known for his contributions to

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computing, computation in which many calculations or Process (computing), processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. ...

data-intensive computing Data-intensive computing is a class of parallel computing applications which use a data parallel approach to process large volumes of data typically terabytes or petabytes in size and typically referred to as big data. Computing applications that ...

, and

high-performance computing High-performance computing (HPC) is the use of supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems. Overview HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into ...

(HPC). He is a professor at the Computer Science Biocomplexity Institute at the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...

and also served as the Director of the Digital Science Center. He has authored over 1200 publications in physics and computer science, including his book ''Parallel Computing Works!''. He was awarded Ken Kennedy Award in 2019 by

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

and the

IEEE Computer Society IEEE Computer Society (commonly known as the Computer Society or CS) is a technical society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) dedicated to computing, namely the major areas of hardware, software, standards and people ...

Biography

He was born in England and demonstrated early aptitude in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

and

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

. Fox was educated at the

Leys School The Leys School is a co-educational private school in Cambridge, England. It is a boarding and day school for about 565 pupils between the ages of eleven and eighteen. The head is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. ...

and

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

. In 1964, he was the

Senior Wrangler The Senior Wrangler is the top mathematics undergraduate at the University of Cambridge in England, a position which has been described as "the greatest intellectual achievement attainable in Britain". Specifically, it is the person who achiev ...

at Cambridge, the highest scorer in the mathematics tripos. That same year, he played in the annual chess match against Oxford University and received the Mayhew Prize for Applied Mathematics. He earned a Ph.D. in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain, and predict List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1967. As an undergraduate research student, he worked in the laboratory of

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the Nucleic acid doub ...

, co-discoverer of the

DNA double helix In molecular biology, the term double helix refers to the structure formed by double-stranded molecules of nucleic acids such as DNA. The double helical structure of a nucleic acid complex arises as a consequence of its secondary structure, a ...

Academic career

Fox's academic career began at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

, where he worked from 1970 to 1990. He then joined

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

from 1990 to 2000 and

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...

from 2000 to 2001. In July 2001, Fox became a professor at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...

., where he served as the director of the Digital Science Center and

associate dean Dean is a title employed in academic administrations such as colleges or universities for a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, over a specific area of concern, or both. In the United States and Canada, deans are usua ...

for research and graduate studies at the School of Informatics and Computing. As of March 2024, he holds the position of professor at the University of Virginia's Computer Science Biocomplexity Institute. In 1989, Fox was elected a

Fellow of the American Physical Society The American Physical Society honors members with the designation ''Fellow'' for having made significant accomplishments to the field of physics. The following lists are divided chronologically by the year of designation. * List of fellows of the ...

for contributions to the use of computers in particle physics. He is also a

Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals in academia, medicine, research, and industry. The exact meaning of the term differs in each field. In learned or professional societies, the term refers ...

for contributions to parallel computing. Fox received the High-Performance Parallel and Distributed Computing (HPDC) Achievement Award

Research

Fox was the director of FutureSystems, a

cyberinfrastructure United States federal government agencies use the term cyberinfrastructure to describe research environments that support advanced data acquisition, data storage, data management, data integration, data mining, data visualization and other computin ...

project active until December, 2021. He is involved in projects aimed at enhancing the capabilities of minority serving institutions. His research interests include applications of computer science in bioinformatics, defense, earthquake and ice-sheet science, particle physics, and chemical informatics. He focuses on network systems science,

and clouds, AI for science, deep learning for data analytics and simulation surrogates, and the interface of data engineering and data science with data systems.

Selected bibliography

Books

* * * * * * *

References

1944 births Living people People from Dunfermline Free software programmers Indiana University faculty Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge Computer science educators 2011 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Fellows of the American Physical Society Syracuse University faculty Florida State University faculty California Institute of Technology faculty {{UK-scientist-stub