Michael Woodger (born 28 March 1923) is a pioneering English

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 ...

. He was influential in the development of the early Pilot ACE computer, working with

Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer ...

, and later the design and documentation of programming languages such as

ALGOL 60 ALGOL 60 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1960'') is a member of the ALGOL family of computer programming languages. It followed on from ALGOL 58 which had introduced code blocks and the begin and end pairs for delimiting them, representing a ...

and Ada. He was based at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) located in

Teddington Teddington is an affluent suburb of London in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Historically an Civil parish#ancient parishes, ancient parish in the county of Middlesex and situated close to the border with Surrey, the district became ...

, London, for most of his career. Mike Woodger was the eldest of four children. His father was Joseph Henry Woodger (1894–1981), a professor of biology at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. He graduated from

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

in 1943 and worked at the Ministry of Supply on military applications for the rest of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In May 1946, he then joined the new Mathematics Division at the National Physical Laboratory located in west London. At NPL, he worked with Alan Turing on the ACE computer design, leading eventually to the Pilot ACE computer after Turing had left NPL, first operational in 1950. He later worked on programming language design, especially

and Ada.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woodger, Mike 1923 births Living people Alumni of University College London British people of World War II Computer designers English computer scientists History of computing in the United Kingdom People from Epsom Programming language designers Scientists of the National Physical Laboratory (United Kingdom)