Peter Wegner (computer scientist)
{{short description|American computer scientist}}
{{For|other people with the same name|Peter Wegner (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox scientist
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1932|08|20}}
| birth_place = Leningrad, USSR
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2017|07|27|1932|08|20}}{{citation |url=https://cs.brown.edu/news/2017/07/27/memoriam-peter-wegner-1932-2017/ |title=In Memoriam: Peter Wegner, 1932-2017 |date=27 July 2017 |access-date=28 July 2017}}
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| fields = Computer science
| workplaces = University of London
University of Cambridge
Brown University
| alma_mater = University of London
| thesis_title = Programming Languages, Information Structures And Machine Organization
| thesis_url = http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1096484
| thesis_year = 1968
| doctoral_advisor = Maurice Wilkes{{MathGenealogy|id= 15166}}
| academic_advisors =
| doctoral_students =William Cook
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| awards = Fellow of the ACM{{smaller|{{nbsp|2}}(1995)}}
Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, First Class{{smaller|{{nbsp|2}}(1999)}}
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| website = {{URL|http://www.cs.brown.edu/~pw}}
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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 during the 1980s and to the relevance of the Church–Turing thesis for empirical aspects of computer science during the 1990s and present. In 2016, Wegner wrote a brief autobiography for Conduit, the annual Brown University Computer Science department magazine.[https://blog.cs.brown.edu/2016/05/31/peter-wegner-life-remarkable/ Peter Wegner: A Life Remarkable][https://www.ams.org/mathscinet/MRAuthorID/344067 Wegner, Peter]. MathSciNet{{DBLP|name=Peter Wegner}}{{AcademicSearch| 2000755}}{{ACM Portal|name=Peter Wegner}}{{Cite journal | last1 = Wegner | first1 = P. | author-link1 = Peter Wegner (computer scientist)| title = Why interaction is more powerful than algorithms | doi = 10.1145/253769.253801 | journal = Communications of the ACM | volume = 40 | issue = 5 | pages = 80–91 | year = 1997 | citeseerx = 10.1.1.57.9269 | s2cid = 11605796 }}
Education
Wegner was educated at the University of Cambridge and received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Numerical Analysis and Automatic Computing in 1954, at a time when there were no PhD programs in computer science. He was awarded a PhD from the University of London in 1968 for his book Programming Languages, Information Structures, and Machine Organization, with Maurice Wilkes listed as his supervisor.{{cite thesis |degree=PhD |first=Peter|last=Wegner |title=Programming Languages, Information Structures, and Machine Organization |publisher=University of London |date=1968 |url=http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1096484|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130703184713/http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1096484|url-status=dead|archive-date=2013-07-03|author-link=Peter Wegner (computer scientist)}}
Research
Wegner's seminal work in the area of object-oriented programming is On Understanding Types,{{Cite journal | last1 = Cardelli | first1 = Luca| author-link1 = Luca Cardelli| last2 = Wegner | first2 = Peter| author-link2 = Peter Wegner (computer scientist)| doi = 10.1145/6041.6042| title = On understanding types, data abstraction, and polymorphism| journal = ACM Computing Surveys| issn = 0360-0300| volume = 17| issue = 4| pages = 471–523| date=December 1985 | url = http://lucacardelli.name/Papers/OnUnderstanding.A4.pdf| citeseerx = 10.1.1.117.695| s2cid = 2921816}} which was co-authored with Luca Cardelli. 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 (ACM) in 1995 and received the ACM Distinguished Service Award in 2000.{{cite web
| url=http://fellows.acm.org/award_winners/wegner_1068550.cfm
| title=Peter Wegner
| work=Association for Computing Machinery
| year=1995
| access-date=2017-07-29
}} "For many years of generous service to ACM and the computing community, including outstanding and inspiring leadership in publications and in charting research directions for computer science." In 1999, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 1st class ("Österreichisches Ehrenkreuz für Wissenschaft u. Kunst I. Klasse"),{{cite web
| url=http://wit.tuwien.ac.at/events/wegner/index_en.html
| title=Peter Wegner – A prominent pioneer in computer science!
| work=Faculty of Informatics, TU Vienna
| year=2006
| access-date=2009-10-03
}}{{cite web | url = http://www.parlament.gv.at/PAKT/VHG/XXIV/AB/AB_10542/imfname_251156.pdf | title = Reply to a parliamentary question | language = de | page=1306 | access-date = 24 November 2012 }} but was hit by a bus and sustained serious brain injuries when on a trip to London to receive his award.{{cite web
| url=http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/vol24/24GSJ07a.html
| title=Peter Wegner on the mend
| work=George Street Journal, Brown University
| author=Kristen Cole
| year=1999
| access-date=2009-10-03
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060919111350/http://www.brown.edu/Administration/George_Street_Journal/vol24/24GSJ07a.html
| archive-date=2006-09-19
| url-status=dead
}} He recovered after a lengthy coma.
He was the editor-in-chief of ACM Computing Surveys{{cite web
|url = http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=7291565&srt=all&aw=144&ao=DISTGSVC
|title = Peter Wegner
|work = ACM Distinguished Service Award
|year = 2000
|access-date = 2009-10-03
|url-status = dead
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120504100531/http://awards.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=7291565&srt=all&aw=144&ao=DISTGSVC
|archive-date = 2012-05-04
}} and of The Brown Faculty Bulletin.
References
{{Reflist|refs=
{{Cite book |title=Hacker's Delight |title-link=Hacker's Delight |author-first=Henry S. |author-last=Warren, Jr. |date=2013 |orig-year=2002 |edition=2 |publisher=Addison-Wesley – Pearson Education |isbn=978-0-321-84268-8 |id=0-321-84268-5 |pages=477}}
}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wegner, Peter}}
Category:Alumni of the University of London
Category:American computer scientists
Category:Austrian computer scientists
Category:Programming language researchers
Category:1995 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery
Category:Recipients of the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class