Peter A. Wegner (August 20, 1932 – July 27, 2017) was a professor of computer science at Brown University from 1969 to 1999. He made significant contributions to both the theory of

object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of " objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

during the 1980s and to the relevance of the

Church–Turing thesis In computability theory, the Church–Turing thesis (also known as computability thesis, the Turing–Church thesis, the Church–Turing conjecture, Church's thesis, Church's conjecture, and Turing's thesis) is a thesis about the nature of co ...

for empirical aspects of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

during the 1990s and present. In 2016, Wegner wrote a brief autobiography for ''Conduit'', the annual Brown University Computer Science department magazine.Peter Wegner: A Life Remarkable
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MathSciNet MathSciNet is a searchable online bibliographic database created by the American Mathematical Society in 1996. It contains all of the contents of the journal '' Mathematical Reviews'' (MR) since 1940 along with an extensive author database, links ...

Education

Wegner was educated at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Numerical Analysis and Automatic Computing in 1954, at a time when there were no

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

programs in computer science. He was awarded a PhD from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degre ...

in 1968 for his book ''Programming Languages, Information Structures, and Machine Organization'', with

Maurice Wilkes Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (26 June 1913 – 29 November 2010) was a British computer scientist who designed and helped build the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), one of the earliest stored program computers, and who ...

listed as his supervisor.

Research

Wegner's seminal work in the area of object-oriented programming is ''On Understanding Types'', which was co-authored with

Luca Cardelli Luca Andrea Cardelli, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), is an Italian computer scientist who is a research professor at the University of Oxford in Oxford, UK. Cardelli is well known for his research in type theory and operational semantics. A ...

. On the relevance of the Church–Turing thesis, he co-authored several papers and co-edited a book ''Interactive Computation: the New Paradigm'', which was published in 2006.

Awards

Wegner was inducted as a Fellow 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 member ...

(ACM) in 1995 and received the ACM Distinguished Service Award in 2000. In 1999, he was awarded the

Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 1st class The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian D ...

("Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft u. Kunst I. Klasse"), but was hit by a bus and sustained serious brain injuries when on a trip to London to receive his award. He recovered after a lengthy coma. He was the editor-in-chief of ''

ACM Computing Surveys ''ACM Computing Surveys'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the Association for Computing Machinery. It publishes survey articles and tutorials related to computer science and computing. The journal was established in 196 ...

'' and of The Brown Faculty Bulletin.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wegner, Peter 1932 births 2017 deaths Alumni of the University of London American computer scientists Austrian computer scientists Programming language researchers 1995 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class Brown University faculty