Isaac Robert "Ike" Nassi, born 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, is currently CTO and chairman at TidalScale, Inc. in Campbell, CA, and Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

. He is known for creating (with

Ben Shneiderman Ben Shneiderman (born August 21, 1947) is an American computer scientist, a Distinguished University Professor in the University of Maryland Department of Computer Science, which is part of the University of Maryland College of Computer, Mathe ...

) the highly influential

Nassi–Shneiderman diagram A Nassi–Shneiderman diagram (NSD) in computer programming is a graphical design representation for structured programming. This type of diagram was developed in 1972 by Isaac Nassi and Ben Shneiderman who were both graduate students at S ...

notation. He also helped design the

Ada programming language Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, and object-oriented high-level programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages. It has built-in language support for '' design by contract'' (DbC), extremely strong typing, explic ...

Early life

Ike earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics, a master's degree and doctorate in Computer Science from Stony Brook University, New York, in 1974.

Career

Ike was formerly EVP and Chief Scientist at

SAP AG Sap is a fluid transported in xylem cells (vessel elements or tracheids) or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. These cells transport water and nutrients throughout the plant. Sap is distinct from latex, resin, or cell sap; it is a sepa ...

, and the practice lead of the

SAP Research SAP Research is the global technology research unit of SAP SE with a network of 21 research locations worldwide. Each center is located in close proximity to an SAP development center or on a university campus. The group significantly contributes ...

Technology Infrastructure practice, which was focused on guiding SAP's technology infrastructure vision, direction, and execution. His group was also responsible for the SAP Sponsored Academic Research Program. Prior to his work at TidalScale and SAP, Ike helped start three companies: Firetide, InfoGear Technology, and

Encore Computer Encore Computer was an early pioneer in the parallel computing market, based in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Although offering several system designs beginning in 1985, they were never as well known as other companies in this field such as Pyramid ...

. He co-founded the wireless mesh company

Firetide Firetide is an American, international provider of wireless mesh network technology. It is a division of UNICOM Global. Based in the Silicon Valley, Firetide designs and sells hardware and software for wireless technology. Corporate history Fir ...

and then served as its EVP, chief technology officer (CTO), and chairman of the board. Ike was the CTO and head of product operations at InfoGear prior to its acquisition by

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

. He helped start

, a pioneer in symmetric multiprocessors and forerunner of today's multicore processors. In addition to his start-up experience, Ike held an executive position at Cisco Systems following its acquisition of InfoGear Technology. He joined

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

to run the new Advanced Technology Group research lab in Cambridge, MA near MIT, work on the

Dylan programming language Dylan is a multi-paradigm programming language that includes support for functional and object-oriented programming (OOP), and is dynamic and reflective while providing a programming model designed to support generating efficient machine code, in ...

intended for the

Apple Newton The Newton is a series of personal digital assistants (PDAs) developed and marketed by Apple Computer, Inc. An early device in the PDA category (the Newton originated the term), it was the first to feature handwriting recognition. Apple started ...

, become VP of Development Tools in California, become SVP of Software, launch

MkLinux MkLinux (for Microkernel Linux) is an open-source software computer operating system begun by the Open Software Foundation Research Institute and Apple Computer in February 1996, to port Linux to the PowerPC platform, and Macintosh computers. The ...

, and become a Corporate Officer. He served on the boards of

Taligent Taligent Inc. (a portmanteau of "talent" and "intelligent") was an American software company. Based on the Pink object-oriented operating system conceived by Apple in 1988, Taligent Inc. was incorporated as an Apple/IBM partnership in 1992, and w ...

and the

OpenDoc OpenDoc is a defunct multi-platform software componentry framework standard created by Apple in the 1990s for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). It is one of Apple's ear ...

Foundation. He also held executive and senior management roles at Visual Technology (Tewkesbury, MA),

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 ...

, and at

SofTech SofTech, Inc. was a computer software company with offices in the United States and headquarters established in Lowell, Massachusetts. SofTech was a significant provider of software engineering tools and solutions in the 1970's as well as Product ...

. Ike serves as an active member of the board of trustees of the

Computer History Museum The Computer History Museum (CHM) is a museum of computer history, located in Mountain View, California. The museum presents stories and artifacts of Silicon Valley and the information age, and explores the computing revolution and its impact on ...

in Mountain View, California, and formerly served on the board of the

Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology AnitaB.org (formerly Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, and Institute for Women in Technology) is a global nonprofit organization based in Belmont, California. Founded by computer scientists Anita Borg and Telle Whitney, the institute' ...

. He is a member of the Industry Advisory Board of the

IEEE Computer Society 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 operati ...

, and member of the Advisory Boards of

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York system's ...

, and

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

. He has been a visiting scholar at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

and

U.C. Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

, and was most recently a visiting scientist at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

. Nassi holds several patents and He was a member of the

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

's Information Systems and Technology group and has testified before Congress on the Emerging Telecommunications Act of 1991. Nassi holds memberships in the

IEEE 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 ...

and

ACM ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

Awards

Ike was awarded a Certificate for Distinguished Service in 1983 from the

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philippin ...

for his work on the design of the Ada programming language.

References

External links

* Ike Nassi's homepage
SAP Research at SAP Labs LLC
- Ike Nassi at SAP Research, SAP Labs LLC {{DEFAULTSORT:Nassi, Isaac American chief technology officers American computer scientists American technology chief executives Apple Inc. executives Computer systems researchers Living people Programming language researchers 1949 births