Patrick Peter Chan is a Canadian computer scientist based in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

, California. Born in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

, British Columbia, he attended the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

, and the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

. He holds a master's in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and has made some contributions to the field.

Education and career

Patrick Chan got a BS degree from the

before moving on to earn his MS degree at the

. He got his first job at his alma mater, UBC, before finding employment at Digital. After leaving Digital, he joined

Sun Microsystems Inc. Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed si ...

where he helped

James Gosling James Arthur Gosling (born 19 May 1955) is a Canadian computer scientist, best known as the founder and lead designer behind the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Gosling was elected a member of the National Academy of E ...

create

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

. He later moved to work at

KMart Kmart ( ), formerly legally registered as Kmart Corporation, now operated by Transformco, is a department-store chain and online retailer in the United States and Territories of the United States, its territories. It operates four remaining Kma ...

's BlueLight.com as the company's CTO. He then worked as VP of Engineering of Composite Software, a San Mateobased firm specializing in virtual database integration. Currently, he works at

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

in San Francisco.

Accomplishments & Awards

While best known for his Java Almanac and Java Class Libraries publications, Chan's most significant work was as a founding member and lead developer of the original

platform project at Sun Microsystems, Inc. His publication "Rooms" was an early conception that paved the way for the implementation of

virtual desktops In computing, a virtual desktop is a term used with respect to user interfaces, usually within the WIMP paradigm, to describe ways in which the virtual space of a computer's desktop environment is expanded beyond the physical limits of the sc ...

. While working at BlueLight.com, he was recognized by InformationWeek Magazine as being one of the top 25 influential CTOs in 2000. Chan was the winner of the 1998 Duke Award at

JavaOne __NOTOC__ JavaOne is an annual conference first organized in 1996 by Sun Microsystems to discuss Java technologies, primarily among Java developers. It was held in San Francisco, California, typically running from a Monday to Thursday in summer m ...

. In 2005, Chan earned a place in the 2006 World

Settlers of Catan ''Catan'', previously known as ''The Settlers of Catan'' or simply ''Settlers'', is a multiplayer board game designed by Klaus Teuber. It was first published in 1995 in Germany by Franckh-Kosmos Verlag (Kosmos) as ''Die Siedler von Catan'' (). ...

Championship by winning the qualifying tournament at the

Origins Game Fair Origins Game Fair is an annual gaming convention that was first held in 1975. Since 1996, it has been held in Columbus, Ohio at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. Origins is run by the Game Manufacturers Association (GAMA). Origins was cha ...

Columbus Columbus is a Latinized version of the Italian surname "''Colombo''". It most commonly refers to: * Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), the Italian explorer * Columbus, Ohio, the capital city of the U.S. state of Ohio * Columbus, Georgia, a city i ...

, Ohio.

Publications

* Patrick Chan, ''The Java Developers Almanac 1.4, Volume 1: Examples and Quick Reference'', Prentice Hall PTR, 2002,

References

* Canadian computer scientists Living people Scientists from Vancouver Year of birth missing (living people) {{compu-scientist-stub