A pioneer in computer
architecture climbs the university's leadership ranks
John Hennessy's career is
steeped in the academy, and most of it has been spent at
Stanford.
Hennessy, 47, grew up in
Huntington, Long Island, New York, and attended Catholic
high school. In remarks last November as part of the
"What Matters to Me and Why" series in Memorial
Church, he said he draws upon his Catholic religious
background for "quiet reflection and inspiration,
when difficult decisions keep me up late at night."
He added that at his high school he was exposed to a
broad knowledge of a wide variety of religions that has
helped him understand the different approaches and
motivations of people of different faiths.
Hennessy received his
bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from
Villanova University in 1973. He received his master's
and doctoral degrees in computer science from the State
University of New York at Stony Brook in 1975 and 1977,
respectively.
In the fall of 1977 he
joined Stanford as assistant professor of electrical
engineering, rising to associate professor in 1983 and
full professor in 1986.
In 1981, Hennessy
initiated a project at Stanford that focused on a simpler
computer architecture known as RISC (Reduced Instruction
Set Computer), a technology that has revolutionized the
computer industry. In addition to his role in the basic
research, Hennessy played a key part in transferring this
technology to industry. During a sabbatical leave in
1984-85 he cofounded MIPS Computer Systems, now known as
MIPS Technologies, which specializes in the production of
microprocessors.
Hennessy credits his time
at MIPS with giving him an appreciation for the world of
business and the significance of leadership.
"It taught me about
the importance of the people you work with and the
importance of leadership, about being able to achieve
things that do justice to the people on the front
lines," he said. "I think of leaders as
servants of their constituents."
In recent years,
Hennessy's research has focused on building
high-performance computers and in making such machines
useful to a wide variety of potential users. One goal is
to make computer cycles so inexpensive that massive
amounts of computer power can be applied to solve
problems ranging from large-scale scientific simulations
to simple sensory tasks such as speech recognition.
Hennessy currently serves
as chairman of the board of directors of T-span, and he
also has been on the technical advisory boards for
Tensilica, Microsoft and Virtual Machine Works.
Although he said his
outside business experience has been of exceptional
value, he has always returned to the university. "In
my heart of hearts, I like being an academic and I like
working with students," he said.
Soon after taking the helm
of the School of Engineering in 1996, Hennessy oversaw
the development of a five-year plan that resulted in a
major new thrust in bioengineering and biomedical
engineering. In 1999, Silicon Graphics and Netscape
cofounder Jim Clark, Hennessy's former colleague in the
Department of Electrical Engineering, donated $150
million to the university to further that effort. The
donation will fund the Clark Center for Biomedical
Engineering and Sciences.
"The whole notion of
biology becoming this foundational science for lots of
different disciplines is something that we can build on
in a unique way," Hennessy said at the time.
"Recent discoveries in genetics and cellular
biology, coupled with strides in computing and
miniaturization of devices, will provide incredible
opportunities for advances in biomedicine, bioengineering
and bioscience. The breakthroughs will be at the
intersection of biology and other science and engineering
fields. Stanford has world-class programs in all of these
areas, and interdisciplinary work is already under
way."
As dean of the School of
Engineering, Hennessy also pledged to encourage the
spread of computer technology as an instructional and
design tool. He oversaw the development of the first
online master's degree -- in electrical engineering --
offered by a major research university.
In 1999, President Gerhard
Casper tapped him for the job of provost -- the
university's chief academic and budget officer -- a post
he has held since July with responsibility over more than
1,600 faculty members, about 13,000 students and an
annual budget of $1.5 billion. He succeeded Condoleezza
Rice, who is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
and a foreign policy adviser to Republican presidential
candidate George W. Bush.
Earlier this year Hennessy
was named a co-recipient of the prestigious John von
Neumann Medal awarded by the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, of which he is a fellow. He is
also a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a
fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a
fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. He was
a National Science Foundation Presidential Young
Investigator in 1984.
He has lectured widely and
published scholarly papers on a range of topics. He has
co-written two textbooks that are used internationally: Computer
Organization and Design: The Hardware/Software Interface (1993;
second edition 1998) and Computer Architecture: A
Quantitative Approach (1990; second edition 1995).
Hennessy and his wife,
Andrea, and their two teen-aged sons live in Atherton.
The family plans to move into Hoover House after the
presidential residence undergoes repair work. SR
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