John R. Mashey (born 1946) 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 (a ...

, director and entrepreneur.

Career

Mashey holds a Ph.D. in computer science from

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...

, where he developed the

ASSIST Assist or ASSIST may refer to: Sports Several sports have a statistic known as an "assist", generally relating to action by a player leading to a score by another player on their team: *Assist (basketball), a pass by a player that facilitates a ba ...

assembler language teaching software. He worked on the

PWB/UNIX The Programmer's Workbench (PWB/UNIX) is an early, now discontinued, version of the Unix operating system that had been created in the Bell Labs Computer Science Research Group of AT&T. Its stated goal was to provide a time-sharing working envir ...

operating system at

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

from 1973 to 1983, authoring the

PWB shell The PWB shell (also known as the Mashey shell) was a Unix shell. History The PWB shell was a modified (and generally constrained to be upward-compatible) version of the Thompson shell with additional features to increase usability for programmin ...

, also known as the "Mashey Shell". He then moved to

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

to join Convergent Technologies, ending as director of software. He joined

MIPS Computer Systems MIPS Technologies, Inc., formerly MIPS Computer Systems, Inc., was an American fabless semiconductor design company that is most widely known for developing the MIPS architecture and a series of RISC CPU chips based on it. MIPS provides proce ...

in early 1985, managing

operating systems An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

development, and helping design the MIPS

RISC In computer engineering, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) is a computer designed to simplify the individual instructions given to the computer to accomplish tasks. Compared to the instructions given to a complex instruction set comput ...

architecture, as well as specific CPUs, systems and software. He continued similar work at

Silicon Graphics Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and soft ...

(1992–2000), contributing to the design of the NUMAflex modular computer architecture using

NUMAlink NUMAlink is a system interconnect developed by Silicon Graphics (SGI) for use in its distributed shared memory ccNUMA computer systems. NUMAlink was originally developed by SGI for their Origin 2000 and Onyx2 systems. At the time of these systems ...

, ending as VP and chief scientist. Mashey was one of the founders of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) benchmarking group, was an ACM National Lecturer for four years, has been guest editor for ''

IEEE Micro ''IEEE Micro'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the IEEE Computer Society covering small systems and semiconductor chips, including integrated circuit processes and practices, project management, development tools and infrastruct ...

'', and one of the long-time organizers of the

Hot Chips 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 operat ...

conferences. He chaired technical conferences on operating systems and CPU chips, and gave public talks on software engineering, RISC design, performance benchmarking and supercomputing. He has been credited for being the first to spread the term and concept of

big data Though used sometimes loosely partly because of a lack of formal definition, the interpretation that seems to best describe Big data is the one associated with large body of information that we could not comprehend when used only in smaller am ...

in the 1990s. He became a consultant for

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

s and high-tech companies and a trustee of the Computer History Museum in 2001. In 1997 he received

's firs
Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award for Computer Science and Engineering
In 2012, he received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award ("Flame Award") "for his contributions to the UNIX community since its early days". He has written articles for the ''

Skeptical Inquirer ''Skeptical Inquirer'' is a bimonthly American general-audience magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) with the subtitle: ''The Magazine for Science and Reason''. Mission statement and goals Daniel Loxton, writing in 2 ...

'' regarding

climate change denial Climate change denial, or global warming denial, is denial, dismissal, or doubt that contradicts the scientific consensus on climate change, including the extent to which it is caused by humans, its effects on nature and human society, or the ...

. In 2010 he published a 250-page critical report on the Wegman Report. Mashey's report concluded that the Wegman Report contained

plagiarized Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 '' Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close imitation of the language and though ...

text. This story was featured in ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

'', and he was interviewed in ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'' magazine, which stated that he was "spending his retirement years compiling voluminous critiques of what he calls the 'real conspiracy' to produce 'climate antiscience'." His research has investigated the secretive funding of climate contrarian thinktanks. Mashey blogs at DeSmogBlog, which focuses on

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

. Mashey became a scientific and technical consultant for the

Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the US non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to "prom ...

in 2015.

Personal life

Mashey is married to Angela Hey, a

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

and

Waterloo University The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to "Uptown" Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also operates ...

graduate with a Ph.D. from

Imperial College, London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a c ...

References

Living people 1946 births Pennsylvania State University alumni Unix people Scientists at Bell Labs Silicon Graphics people American computer programmers {{Unix-stub