Susan Lois Graham (born September 16, 1942) is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

. Graham is the

Pehong Chen Pehong Chen (; born 1957) is a Taiwanese-American businessman who co-founded Gain Technology with his Ph.D. advisor Michael A. Harrison and went on to found BroadVision. He is chairman, president and chief executive officer of BroadVision. '' ...

Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Computer Science Division of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

Education and professional career

Born in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

, Graham received her A.B. in mathematics from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

in 1964. She did her graduate work in computer science at

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

, receiving her M.S. in 1966 and her Ph.D. in 1971 under the supervision of David Gries. In 1971 she joined the faculty of the

, rising from assistant professor (1971–1976), through associate professor (1976–1981) to full professor from 1981 onwards. Graham's research projects include: *Harmonia – A language-based framework for interactive software development. *Titanium - A

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 ...

-based

parallel programming 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. ...

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...

, and

runtime system In computer programming, a runtime system or runtime environment is a sub-system that exists in the computer where a program is created, as well as in the computers where the program is intended to be run. The name comes from the compile time ...

. Graham was the founding editor of the ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems. Graham has published dozens of research articles and has lectured and published extensively on subjects in computer languages, compilers and programming environments. She is a member of the

United States President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) is a council, chartered (or re-chartered) in each administration with a broad mandate to advise the president of the United States on science and technology. The current PCAST w ...

. Among other activities, she chaired the Panel on Open Source Software for High End Computing. Graham has long been involved with

, culminating with her joining the

Harvard Corporation The President and Fellows of Harvard College, also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation, is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards. It refers to itself as the oldest corporation in the Western ...

in 2011.

Honors and awards

She was elected a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

in 1993 for contributions to the theory and practice of compiler construction and for leadership in the computer science community. In 1994 she was inducted as a

Fellow 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 society, learned or professional society, p ...

of the

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 ...

. She is also a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

, and the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

(IEEE). In 2004, her paper on

Gprof Gprof is a performance analysis tool for Unix applications. It used a hybrid of instrumentation and samplingSusan L. Graham, Peter B. Kessler, and Marshall K. Mckusick''gprof: a Call Graph Execution Profiler''// Proceedings of the SIGPLAN '82 Sy ...

appeared on the list of the 50 most influential

PLDI The Programming Language Design and Implementation (PLDI) conference is an annual computer science conference organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) which focuses on the study of algorithms, programming languages and compiler ...

papers of all time as one of four papers of 1982 year. In 2009, she was awarded the

IEEE John von Neumann Medal The IEEE John von Neumann Medal was established by the IEEE Board of Directors in 1990 and may be presented annually "for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology." The achievements may be theoretical, technological, or ...

for "contributions to programming language design and implementation and for exemplary service to the discipline of computer science". On Sept. 29, 2011 it was announced that she had been chosen to receive the ACM- IEEE-CS Ken Kennedy Award on November 15, 2011 in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

at SC11, the international conference on high-performance computing. Graham is featured in the Notable Women in Computing cards.

Personal life

Graham is married to professor emeritus

Michael A. Harrison Michael A. Harrison is a computer scientist, in particular a pioneer in the area of formal languages. Biography Michael A. Harrison (born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.) studied electrical engineering and computing for BS and MS at the Cas ...

of UC Berkeley.

References

External links

Susan L. Graham home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Graham, Susan L. Living people Harvard College alumni Stanford University School of Engineering alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the IEEE Programming language researchers American computer scientists American women computer scientists 1942 births Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering 21st-century American women 1994 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery

Education and professional career

Honors and awards

Personal life

See also

References

External links