Murray Turoff (February 13, 1936 – October 28, 2022 ) was a

Distinguished Professor Distinguished Professor is an academic title given to some top tenured professors in a university, school, or department. Some distinguished professors may have endowed chairs. In the United States Often specific to one institution, titles such ...

at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) who was a key founding father of

computer-mediated communication Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is defined as any human communication that occurs through the use of two or more electronic devices. While the term has traditionally referred to those communications that occur via computer-mediated forma ...

Career

Turoff received his B.A. degree in Mathematics and Physics from the

University of California at 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. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

in 1958. He received his PhD in Physics from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , p ...

in 1965. Turoff has served as Chairperson of the ''Information Systems Department'', acting Chairperson of the ''Computer and Information Science'' Department as well as Director of Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center during his tenure at

NJIT {{Infobox university , name = {{nowrap, New Jersey Institute of Technology , image = New Jersey IT seal.svg , image_upright = 0.9 , former_names = Newark College of Engineering (1930–1975)Ne ...

. He was also simultaneously a member of the faculty at

Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...

''Graduate School of Management'' between 1982 and 2005. Turoff co-founded the ''Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management'' (

ISCRAM The Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) Community is an international community of researchers, practitioners and policy makers involved in or concerned about the design, development, deployment, use and evaluation of i ...

) community. After his retirement he held the title ''

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

'' in the Information Systems Department at New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Major projects

Turoff was the designer of the ''Emergency Management Information System And Reference Index'' (EMISARI), which was the first group communication-oriented crisis management system and which was used for the 1971 Wage Price Freeze and assorted federal crisis events until the mid-1980s. He designed and implemented

EIES The Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES, pronounced ''eyes'') was an early online conferencing bulletin board system that allowed real-time and asynchronous communication. The system was used to deliver courses, conduct conferencing sess ...

(Electronic Information Exchange System) as part of a 25-year research program into the design of structured Computer Mediated Communications Systems (CMC) to conduct field trials and evaluations of alternative applications of human communications via computers.

Publications

He has authored or co-authored 8 books including ''The Network Nation'' (with his wife

Starr Roxanne Hiltz Starr Roxanne Hiltz is a retired Distinguished Professor of Information Science/Information Systems at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). She, along with Murray Turoff (her husband), are the authors of ''The Network Nation'', a book tha ...

) which won the

TSM Award TSM may refer to: *Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, a semiconductor foundry *IBM Tivoli Storage Manager, a backup software product * Texas Student Media, a student media operation of The University of Texas at Austin *Toulouse School of ...

of the

Association of American Publishers The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is the national trade association of the American book publishing industry. AAP lobbies for book, journal, and education publishers in the United States. AAP members include most of the major commercia ...

for the ''Best Technical Publication'' in 1978 which went on to become the defining document and standard reference of its time for the field of computer mediated communication.

Awards

Turoff was awarded the

EFF Pioneer Award The EFF Pioneer Award is an annual prize by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for people who have made significant contributions to the empowerment of individuals in using computers. Until 1998 it was presented at a ceremony in Washington, ...

in 1994 for "significant and influential contributions to computer-based communications and to the empowerment of individuals in using computers." In 2018 he was inducted into the

International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences The International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences (IASCYS) is an honor society initially created by the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). The academy identifies outstanding scientists in systems and cybernetics and e ...

References

*"website" http://is.njit.edu/turoff
"Full Vita of Murray Turoff" ''The Network Nation''
* ttp://www.math.upatras.gr/~mboudour/articles/csi.html "Social and Psychological Effects in Computer-Mediated Communication (Moses A. Boudourides)" {{DEFAULTSORT:Turoff, Murray 1936 births 2022 deaths UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni Brandeis University alumni New Jersey Institute of Technology faculty People from San Francisco