Philip Emeagwali (born 23 August 1954) is a

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...

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 won the 1989

Gordon Bell Prize The Gordon Bell Prize, commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize of Supercomputing, is an award presented by the Association for Computing Machinery each year in conjunction with the SC Conference series (formerly known as the Supercomputing Conferen ...

for price-performance in high-performance computing applications, in an oil reservoir modeling calculation using a novel mathematical formulation and implementation. He is known for making controversial claims about his achievements that are disputed by the scientific community.

Biography

Philip Emeagwali was born in

Akure Akure is a city in south-western Nigeria. It is the capital and largest city of Ondo State. The city had a population of 403,000 as at the 2006 population census. History Pre 1914 Rock engravings dating back to the Mesolithic period, hav ...

, Nigeria on 23 August 1954.Hamilton, Janice (2003). ''Nigeria in Pictures''. Lerner Publishing Group. p. 70. . He was raised in Onitsha in the South Eastern part of Nigeria. His early schooling was suspended in 1967 as a result of the

Nigerian Civil War The Nigerian Civil War (6 July 1967 – 15 January 1970), also known as the Nigerian–Biafran War or the Biafran War, was a civil war fought between Nigeria and the Republic of Biafra, a secessionist state which had declared its independence f ...

. At age 13, he served in the

Biafran Biafra, officially the Republic of Biafra, was a partially recognised Secession, secessionist state in West Africa that declared independence from Nigeria and existed from 1967 until 1970. Its territory consisted of the predominantly Igbo peop ...

army. After the war he completed high-school equivalence through self-study. Later on he married Dale Brown Emeagwali, an African-American

microbiologist A microbiologist (from Ancient Greek, Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of Microorganism, microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, f ...

Education

He traveled to the United States to study under a scholarship following completion of a correspondence course at the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a public land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degrees. It has the 10th largest engineering co ...

in 1977. He later moved to

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, receiving in 1986 a master's degree from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

in ocean and

marine engineering Marine engineering is the engineering of boats, ships, submarines, and any other marine vessel. Here it is also taken to include the engineering of other ocean systems and structures – referred to in certain academic and professional circl ...

, and a second master's in applied mathematics from the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

. ''

Next Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

'' magazine suggested that Emeagwali claimed to have further degrees. During this time, he worked as a civil engineer at the Bureau of Land Reclamation in

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

Court case and the denial of degree

Emeagwali studied for a Ph.D. degree from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

from 1987 through 1991. His thesis was not accepted by a committee of internal and external examiners and thus he was not awarded the degree. Emeagwali filed a court challenge, stating that the decision was a violation of his civil rights and that the university had discriminated against him in several ways because of his race. The court challenge was dismissed, as was an appeal to the Michigan state Court of Appeals.

Supercomputing

Emeagwali received the 1989

for an application of the CM-2 massively-parallel computer. The application used

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate th ...

for oil-reservoir modeling. He received a prize in "price/performance" category, with a performance figure of about 400 Mflops/$1M. The winner in the "performance" category was also the winner of the Price/performance category, but unable to receive two prizes: Mobil Research and Thinking Machines used the CM-2 for seismic data processing and achieved the higher ratio of 500 Mflops/$1M. The judges decided on one award per entry. His method involved each microprocessor communicating with six neighbors. Emeagwali's simulation was the first program to apply a pseudo-time approach to reservoir modeling. He was cited by

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

as an example of what Nigerians can achieve when given the opportunity and is frequently featured in

popular press Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets. Broadcast media transmit information ...

articles for

Black History Month Black History Month is an annual observance originating in the United States, where it is also known as African-American History Month. It has received official recognition from governments in the United States and Canada, and more recently ...

Debunked controversial claims

Emeagwali has made several controversial claims about his achievements that are disputed by the scientific community. His claim of being a father of the Internet, of having invented the Connection Machine, of possessing 41 patented inventions, of winning "the Nobel Prize of Computing" and of being a "doctor" and/or "professor" have been conclusively debunked with widely documented evidence. Speaking during a visit to Switzerland in April 2009, Mr. Emeagwali said he was the first to program a hypercube "to solve a grand challenge defined as the 20 gold-ring problems in computing. That discovery, in part, inspired the reinvention of supercomputers as an Internet." He claimed that by his effort, he was able to set three world records and improve on Newton's Second Law of Motion.

Accolades

* Price/performance–1989

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 ...

($1,000 prize) *

Selected publications

* Emeagwali, P. (2003). How do we reverse the brain drain. ''speech given at''. * Emeagwali, P. (1997). Can Nigeria leapfrog into the information age. In ''World Igbo Congress. New York: August''.

References

External links

emeagwali.com
– Emeagwali's autobiography.
Digital Giants: Philip Emeagwali (BBC)
as of May 26, 2009). {{DEFAULTSORT:Emeagwali, Philip 1954 births George Washington University School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Living people Oregon State University alumni Scientific computing researchers People from Onitsha People of the Nigerian Civil War Nigerian computer scientists 20th-century Nigerian mathematicians Nigerian engineers Igbo scientists Nigerian emigrants to the United States American people of Igbo descent