Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup Named Recipient of the 2018 IEEE-CS Computer Pioneer Award

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 29 January 2018 — Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup, Managing Director in the technology division of Morgan Stanley, New York City, and visiting professor at Columbia University, has been selected to receive the IEEE Computer Society's 2018 Computer Pioneer Award.

This award is given for significant contributions to early concepts and developments in the electronic computer field, which have clearly advanced the state-of-the-art in computing. Stroustrup is being recognized "for bringing object-oriented programming and generic programming to the mainstream with his design and implementation of the C++ programming language."

Stroustrup is the designer and original implementer of C++, the author of The C++ Programming Language (Fourth Edition) and A Tour of C++, Programming: Principles and Practice using C++ (Second Edition), and many popular and academic publications.

Stroustrup accomplished much of his most important work in Bell Labs. His research interests include distributed systems, design, programming techniques, software development tools, and programming languages. To make C++ a stable and up-to-date base for real-world software development, he has been a leading figure with the ISO C++ standards effort for more than 25 years.

An IEEE, ACM, and CHM fellow, Stroustrup is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. He is the recipient of the 2018 NAE Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering and the 2017 IET Faraday Medal.

He holds a master's in Mathematics from Aarhus University and a PhD in Computer Science from Cambridge University, where he is an honorary fellow of Churchill College.

The Computer Pioneer Award was established in 1981 by the IEEE Computer Society Board of Governors to recognize and honor the vision of those whose efforts resulted in the creation and continued vitality of the computer industry. The award is presented to outstanding individuals whose main contribution to the concepts and development of the computer field was made at least 15 years earlier.

The award will be presented at the 2018 Computer Software and Applications Conference (COMPSAC) sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society. The conference will be held from 23–27 July 2018 in Tokyo, Japan.

The award consists of a silver medal and an invitation to speak at the award presentation.

Past recipients of the award include Frances Allen, Grady Booch, Edgar Codd, Douglas Engelbart, Edward Feigenbaum, Tony Hoare, Robert Kahn, Jack Kilby, Dennis Ritchie, and David Wheeler.

Learn more about the Pioneer Award, including a list of all past recipients.