Gerald Estrin (September 9, 1921 – March 29, 2012) was an American computer scientist, and professor at the UCLA Computer Science Department. He is known for his work on the organization of computer systems, on parallel processing and SARA (system architects apprentice).

Early life and education

Estrin was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1921. He met his future wife Thelma Austern in 1941 at City College, New York and they were married when he was 20 and she was 17. Estrin entered the Army during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, after which he and Thelma Estrin entered the

University of Wisconsin-Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

, where they both earned degrees in Electrical Engineering. Estrin received his B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, ...

in 1948, 1949, and 1951, respectively.

Institute for Advanced Study

Estrin served as research engineer in the

von Neumann Von Neumann may refer to: * John von Neumann (1903–1957), a Hungarian American mathematician * Von Neumann family * Von Neumann (surname), a German surname * Von Neumann (crater), a lunar impact crater See also * Von Neumann algebra * Von Ne ...

group at

IAS IAS may refer to: Science * Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, New Jersey, United States * Image Analysis & Stereology, the official journal of the International Society for Stereology & Image Analysis. * Iowa Archeological Society, Uni ...

from 1950 to 1956. This led to an invitation from the

Weizmann Institute of Science The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli unive ...

in Israel to direct the

WEIZAC WEIZAC (''Weizmann Automatic Computer'') was the first computer in Israel, and one of the first large-scale, stored-program, electronic computers in the world. It was built at the Weizmann Institute during 1954–1955, based on the Institute for ...

Project. Estrin and his wife went to

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

for the

Project in 1954, after which Estrin returned to a teaching position at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

in 1955. In the late 1950s Estrin came up with the concept of

reconfigurable computing Reconfigurable computing is a computer architecture combining some of the flexibility of software with the high performance of hardware by processing with very flexible high speed computing fabrics like field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). Th ...

, which allows the acceleration of computational processes by using variable configurations of specialised hardware modules in addition to a sequential processing unit. The idea was practically realised as "The Fixed Plus Variable Structure Computer".

UCLA

Estrin obtained a teaching position at

in 1953 and they moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. During this time Thelma taught at

Los Angeles Valley College Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC) is a public community college in Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Los Angeles Community College District. The college is adjacent to Grant High School in the neighborhood of Valley Glen. Often call ...

, a junior college in Los Angeles. After their return from the

project, Thelma also began working at UCLA in 1960 and she became a professor in the Computer Science Department in 1980. Gerald Estrin served as Chairperson of the UCLA Computer Science Department from 1979 to 1982 and from 1985 to 1988. He retired in 1991, and was recalled as Professor Emeritus. Estrin was an

IEEE Fellow As of 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has 5,082 members designated Fellow, each of whom is associated with one of the 41 societies under the IEEE. The Fellow grade of membership is the highest level of membershi ...

, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the Board of Governors of the

Personal life

Gerald Estrin had three daughters. Margo Estrin is a medical doctor, Deborah Estrin is a computer scientist and academic professor, and Judith Estrin is a corporate executive.

Selected publications

* Estrin, Gerald. "Organization of computer systems: the fixed plus variable structure computer." ''Papers presented at the May 3–5, 1960, western joint IRE-AIEE-ACM computer conference. ACM,'' 1960. * Estrin, Gerald, et al. "Parallel processing in a restructurable computer system." ''Electronic Computers, IEEE Transactions on'' 6 (1963): 747-755. * Estrin, Gerald, et al. "SARA (system architects apprentice): modeling, analysis, and simulation support for design of concurrent systems." ''Software Engineering, IEEE Transactions on'' 2 (1986): 293–311.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Estrin, Gerald American computer scientists Jewish American scientists 1921 births 2012 deaths Fellow Members of the IEEE United States Army personnel of World War II 21st-century American Jews