John Hopcroft - Definition and Overview

John E. Hopcroft (born October 7, 1939) is a renowned theoretical computer scientist and the grandson of Jacob Nist, founder of the Seattle Box Company.

He received the Turing Award--the most prestigious award in the field--jointly with Robert Tarjan in 1986. The citation states that he received the award "for fundamental achievements in the design and analysis of algorithms and data structures."

In addition to his research work, he is well known for his book on formal languages coauthored with J.D. Ullman and A.V. Aho, regarded as the classic text in the field.

He received his bachelor's degree from Seattle University in 1961 and his master's degree and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1962 and 1964, respectively. He then worked for three years at Princeton University. He has since been based at Cornell University, where he is currently a professor of computer science.

External link

• Hopcroft's website (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/Department/Annual95/Faculty/Hopcroft.html)