Larry Joseph Stockmeyer (1948 – 31 July 2004) was an American computer scientist. He was one of the pioneers in the field of

computational complexity theory In theoretical computer science and mathematics, computational complexity theory focuses on classifying computational problems according to their resource usage, and relating these classes to each other. A computational problem is a task solved ...

, and he also worked in the field of

distributed computing 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 ...

. He died of pancreatic cancer.

Career

* 1972: BSc in mathematics,

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 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 ...

. * 1972: MSc in electrical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. * 1974: PhD in computer science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. ** Supervisor:

Albert R. Meyer Albert Ronald da Silva Meyer (born 1941) is Hitachi America Professor emeritus of computer science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Biography Meyer received his PhD from Harvard University in 1972 in applied mathematics, under t ...

. * 1974–1982:

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research or ...

Thomas J. Watson Research Center The Thomas J. Watson Research Center is the headquarters for IBM Research. The center comprises three sites, with its main laboratory in Yorktown Heights, New York, U.S., 38 miles (61 km) north of New York City, Albany, New York and wit ...

, Yorktown Heights, NY. * 1982–November 2003: IBM Research,

Almaden Research Center IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research org ...

, San Jose, CA. * October 2002–2004:

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

, Computer Science Department – Research Associate.

Recognition

* 1996: Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery: "For several fundamental contributions to computational complexity theory, which have significantly affected the course of this field." * 2007: The Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing for the paper . PODC web site
Dijkstra Prize 2007

Notable publications

* — this work introduced the

polynomial hierarchy In computational complexity theory, the polynomial hierarchy (sometimes called the polynomial-time hierarchy) is a hierarchy of complexity classes that generalize the classes NP and co-NP. Each class in the hierarchy is contained within PSPACE. ...

. * — "one of the most remarkable doctoral theses in computer science".STOC 2005 program
* — this work introduced alternating Turing machines. * — this paper received the

Dijkstra Prize The Edsger W. Dijkstra Paper Prize in Distributed Computing is given for outstanding papers on the principles of distributed computing, whose significance and impact on the theory and/or practice of distributed computing has been evident for at lea ...

in 2007.

Notes

References

* . * * . * . * . * . * . PhD Thesis. * * * * * Includes the program of 'Larry Stockmeyer Commemoration' (21 May 2005).

External links

Larry Stockmeyer's Home Page
* 1948 births 2004 deaths American computer scientists Theoretical computer scientists Researchers in distributed computing MIT School of Engineering alumni University of California, Santa Cruz faculty Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Dijkstra Prize laureates Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni {{compu-scientist-stub