John R. Mashey (born 1946) 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 ...

, director and entrepreneur. He is a consultant for Techviser, a boutique consulting firm.

Career

Mashey holds a Ph.D. 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, ...

from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

, where he developed the ASSIST assembler language teaching software. He worked on the PWB/UNIX operating system at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

from 1973 to 1983, authoring the

PWB shell The PWB shell (also known as the Mashey shell) was a Unix shell. History The PWB shell was a modified (and generally constrained to be upward-compatible) version of the Thompson shell with additional features to increase usability for programmi ...

, also known as the "Mashey Shell". He then moved to

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 ...

to join

Convergent Technologies Convergent Technologies, Inc., was an American computer company formed by a small group of people who left Intel Corporation and Xerox PARC in 1979. Among the founders were CEO Allen Michels, VP Engineering Bob Garrow, head of marketing Kal Hubl ...

, ending as director of software. He joined

MIPS Computer Systems MIPS Tech LLC, formerly MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. and MIPS Technologies, Inc., is an American fabless semiconductor design company that is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of RISC CPU chips based on it. MIP ...

in early 1985, managing

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

development, and helping design the MIPS

RISC In electronics and computer science, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer architecture designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a comp ...

architecture, as well as specific CPUs, systems and software. He continued similar work at

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

(1992–2000), contributing to the design of the NUMAflex modular computer architecture using NUMAlink, ending as VP and chief scientist. Mashey was one of the founders of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) benchmarking group, was an ACM National Lecturer for four years, has been guest editor for ''

IEEE Micro ''IEEE Micro'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the IEEE Computer Society covering small systems and semiconductor chips, including integrated circuit processes and practices, project management, development tools and i ...

'', and one of the long-time organizers of the Hot Chips conferences. He chaired technical conferences on operating systems and CPU chips, and gave public talks on software engineering, RISC design, performance benchmarking and supercomputing. He has been credited for being the first to spread the term and concept of

big data Big data primarily refers to data sets that are too large or complex to be dealt with by traditional data processing, data-processing application software, software. Data with many entries (rows) offer greater statistical power, while data with ...

in the 1990s. He became a consultant for

venture capitalist Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

s and high-tech companies and a trustee of the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a computer museum in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the Information Age, and explores the Digital Revolution, computing revolution and its impact ...

in 2001. In 1997, he received

's firs
Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award for Computer Science and Engineering
In 2012, he received the

USENIX USENIX is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization based in Berkeley, California and founded in 1975 that supports advanced computing systems, operating system (OS), and computer networking research. It organizes several confe ...

Lifetime Achievement Award ("Flame Award") "for his contributions to the UNIX community since its early days". He has written articles for the ''

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' (S.I.) is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle "The Magazine for Science and Reason". The magazine initially focused on investigating clai ...

'' regarding

climate change denial Climate change denial (also global warming denial) is a form of science denial characterized by rejecting, refusing to acknowledge, disputing, or fighting the scientific consensus on climate change. Those promoting denial commonly use rhetor ...

. In 2010, he published a 250-page critical report on the Wegman Report. Mashey's report concluded that the Wegman Report contained

plagiarized Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of anothe ...

text. This story was featured in ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

'', and he was interviewed in ''

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 ...

'' magazine, which stated that he was "spending his retirement years compiling voluminous critiques of what he calls the 'real conspiracy' to produce 'climate antiscience'." His research has investigated the secretive funding of climate contrarian thinktanks. Mashey blogs at

DeSmogBlog DeSmog (formerly The DeSmogBlog) is an international journalism organization that focuses on topics related to climate change. Founded in January 2006, DeSmog's emphasis is investigating and reporting on misinformation campaigns and organization ...

, which focuses on

global warming Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes ...

. Mashey became a scientific and technical consultant for the

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to " ...

in 2015.

Personal life

Mashey is married to Angela Hey, a

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 ...

and Waterloo University graduate with a Ph.D. from

Imperial College, London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mashey, John 1946 births Living people Pennsylvania State University alumni Unix people Scientists at Bell Labs Silicon Graphics people American computer programmers