Turing Award Winners Rankings
A curated ranking of 50 foundational Turing Award laureates, spanning the pioneers of compiler design, cryptography, databases, and modern deep learning.
Science & TechnologyTop 50
No rankings yet. Be the first!
Similar Lists
All Items (50)
Alan Perlis — Inaugural winner, honored for pioneering advanced programming techniques and compiler construction (1966)—
Maurice Wilkes — Architect of EDSAC, the first practical stored-program computer, and inventor of microprogramming (1967)—
Richard Hamming — Foundational work on numerical methods, automatic coding systems, and error-detecting codes (1968)—
Marvin Minsky — Core instigator of artificial intelligence research and neural network architecture (1969)—
J. H. Wilkinson — Pioneering numerical analysis and error bounds for high-speed digital computers (1970)—
John McCarthy — Inventor of the LISP programming language and coined the term Artificial Intelligence (1971)—
Edsger W. Dijkstra — Foundational contributions to structured programming and shortest-path graph algorithms (1972)—
Charles Bachman — Creation of the first integrated database management systems (1973)—
Donald Knuth — Authoring 'The Art of Computer Programming' and developing TeX (1974)—
Allen Newell & Herbert A. Simon — Basic contributions to artificial intelligence and human cognition modeling (1975)—
Michael O. Rabin & Dana Scott — Introducing non-deterministic machines to automata theory (1976)—
John Backus — Developer of FORTRAN and formal syntax via Backus-Naur form (1977)—
Robert W. Floyd — Methodologies for the creation of efficient and reliable software, notably parsing and verification (1978)—
Kenneth E. Iverson — The invention of APL, creating a paradigm-shifting mathematical programming notation (1979)—
C. A. R. Hoare — Definition of programming language semantics and Hoare logic for verification (1980)—
Edgar F. Codd — The creation of the relational database model, revolutionizing data architecture (1981)—
Stephen Cook — Formulating the theory of NP-completeness and computational complexity (1982)—
Ken Thompson & Dennis Ritchie — The development of the UNIX operating system and C programming language (1983)—
Niklaus Wirth — The design of highly influential languages including Pascal and Modula-2 (1984)—
Richard Karp — Demonstrating that a massive class of combinatorial problems are NP-complete (1985)—
John Hopcroft & Robert Tarjan — Foundational work on data structures and the analysis of graph algorithms (1986)—
John Cocke — Contributions to compiler design and the invention of RISC architecture (1987)—
Ivan Sutherland — Invention of Sketchpad, birthing modern computer graphics and GUI paradigms (1988)—
William Kahan — Fundamental contributions to numerical analysis and standardizing IEEE floating-point computation (1989)—
Fernando Corbató — Development of the first large-scale general-purpose time-sharing systems, CTSS and Multics (1990)—
Robin Milner — Development of ML, the calculus of communicating systems (CCS), and logic for computable functions (1991)—
Butler Lampson — Development of distributed personal computing environments and the Alto (1992)—
Juris Hartmanis & Richard Stearns — Establishing the foundations for the field of computational complexity theory (1993)—
Edward Feigenbaum & Raj Reddy — Pioneering the design and construction of large-scale artificial intelligence systems (1994)—
Manuel Blum — Foundations of computational complexity theory applied to cryptography and program checking (1995)—
Amir Pnueli — Introducing temporal logic into computing science for concurrent systems verification (1996)—
Douglas Engelbart — Visionary invention of interactive computing, including the computer mouse and hypermedia (1997)—
Jim Gray — Seminal contributions to database transaction processing and system failure recovery (1998)—
Fred Brooks — Landmark contributions to computer architecture, operating systems, and software engineering management (1999)—
Andrew Yao — Fundamental contributions to the theory of computation, cryptography, and communication complexity (2000)—
Ole-Johan Dahl & Kristen Nygaard — Designing SIMULA, birthing the paradigm of object-oriented programming (2001)—
Ron Rivest, Adi Shamir & Leonard Adleman — Invention of the RSA algorithm, making public-key cryptography practical (2002)—
Alan Kay — Visionary ideas of object-oriented programming and the Dynabook personal computing concept (2003)—
Vint Cerf & Bob Kahn — Pioneering design of the TCP/IP protocols that formed the architecture of the Internet (2004)—
Peter Naur — Fundamental contributions to language design and the definition of ALGOL 60 (2005)—
Frances Allen — Pioneering theory and practice of optimizing compiler techniques for modern architecture (2006)—
Edmund Clarke, E. Allen Emerson & Joseph Sifakis — Developing Model Checking into a highly effective verification technology (2007)—
Barbara Liskov — Foundational contributions to practical and theoretical foundations of programming language design (2008)—
Leslie Valiant — Transformative contributions to machine learning (PAC theory) and parallel computation (2010)—
Judea Pearl — Fundamental innovations in artificial intelligence through probabilistic and causal reasoning (2011)—
Shafi Goldwasser & Silvio Micali — Transformative work establishing the complexity-theoretic foundations of cryptography (2012)—
Leslie Lamport — Fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of distributed and concurrent systems (2013)—
Tim Berners-Lee — Invention of the World Wide Web, the first web browser, and fundamental protocols (2016)—
John Hennessy & David Patterson — Pioneering a systematic, quantitative approach to RISC microprocessor architecture (2017)—
Yoshua Bengio, Geoffrey Hinton & Yann LeCun — Conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that made deep neural networks critical to computing (2018)—