Henry M. "Hank" Levy is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

. He holds the Wissner-Slivka Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

(U.W.).

Work

Levy's research concerns

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

distributed systems A distributed system is a system whose components are located on different networked computers, which communicate and coordinate their actions by passing messages to one another from any system. Distributed computing is a field of computer sci ...

the internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

, and

computer architecture In computer engineering, computer architecture is a description of the structure of a computer system made from component parts. It can sometimes be a high-level description that ignores details of the implementation. At a more detailed level, t ...

. In his early career, Levy worked at

Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president unt ...

(DEC), where he was a member of the design and engineering team for the

VMS #REDIRECT VMS {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from ambiguous page ...

operating system for the

VAX VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The VA ...

computer. His graduate work resulted in the book ''Capability-Based Computer Systems''. He joined the University of Washington Department of Computer Science & Engineering as a faculty member in 1983. In 2006 Levy became Chair of the department, and in 2017, when the department was elevated to become the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, Levy became the first Director of the School, serving until the end of 2019, after over 13 years of leadership. Over that time he oversaw significant growth of the program and its stature, as well as the design and construction of two new buildings, the Paul G. Allen Center and the Bill & Melinda Gates Center. He was involved with several early object-oriented distributed systems (Eden and Emerald), and also with the invention of

simultaneous multithreading Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is a technique for improving the overall efficiency of superscalar CPUs with hardware multithreading. SMT permits multiple independent threads of execution to better use the resources provided by modern process ...

. Levy co-founded two startups, Performant (founded in 2000 and acquired by Mercury in 2003), and Skytap (founded in 2006). He is a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

(NAE), 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), and a fellow of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

(IEEE). Levy is also curator of an art collection for the Allen School. The resulting collection represents nearly thirty artists, each with some connection to the University of Washington. Artists represented include

Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ...

George Tsutakawa George Tsutakawa (February 22, 1910 – December 18, 1997) was an American painter and sculptor best known for his avant-garde bronze fountain designs. Born in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, he was raised in both the United States ...

Kenneth Callahan Kenneth Callahan (1905–1986) was an American painter and muralist who served as a catalyst for Northwest artists in the mid-20th century through his own painting, his work as assistant director and curator at the Seattle Art Museum, and his wr ...

Akio Takamori Akio Takamori (1950 – January 11, 2017) was a Japanese-American ceramic sculptor and was a faculty member at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. Biography Takamori was born in Nobeoka, Miyazaki, Japan in 1950 October 11. The ...

, Alden Mason,

Imogen Cunningham Imogen Cunningham (; April 12, 1883 – June 23, 1976) was an American photographer known for her botanical photography, nudes, and industrial landscapes. Cunningham was a member of the California-based Group f/64, known for its dedication to t ...

Art Wolfe Art Wolfe (born 1951) is an American photographer and conservationist, best known for color images of landscapes, wildlife, and native cultures. His photographs document scenes from every continent and hundreds of locations, and have been noted b ...

, and

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

.''All in the Family: Art in the Allen Center''
University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering, Accessed 13 October 2008 Levy recently joined Google as a Distinguished Engineer.

Notes

External links

Hank Levy's home page
University of Washington
Art in the Allen Center
University of Washington University of Washington faculty American computer scientists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people {{Compu-scientist-stub