This Spring, we celebrated not only the hard work and success of our newest alumni at Convocation, but the legacy of James Wesley (Wes) Graham and his part of the faculty’s history. A humble visionary known as the “father of computing” at the University of Waterloo, Graham was an academic who devoted his career to making the magic of computers available to everyone. Each graduate of our David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science owes a tip of their cap to Graham.
A former employee of IBM Canada, he arrived here in September 1959 as assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. He oversaw the “Red Room”, and the IBM 360 Model 75 inside – the biggest computer in Canada at the time. While the addition of the computer got plenty of attention, Graham knew that the compiler would be slow, and so he assembled a small team of students and staff to write a new Fortran compiler for the mainframe.
WATFOR garnered worldwide interest from other institutions and the University quickly became known as a leader in teaching undergraduate students how to use computers. Eventually, business and industry recognized the value of WATFOR, and the work happening at Waterloo set the path as an international standard for language software.
Graham’s reach extended far beyond the University, as he took steps to make computers accessible to everyone. While he was putting Waterloo computing on the map, he was simultaneously working with the Ministry of Education to develop computer programming instruction courses for high school students. The software that he helped to produce has been used in over 40 countries, influencing teaching of countless thousands of students. In 1999, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, in recognition of his contributions to computer science, education and software production in Canada and around the world.
In 1994 to honour of his many contributions, the University of Waterloo established the J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation, an award conferred annually to recognize individuals who have displayed leadership and have made innovative contributions to the University of Waterloo and the Canadian computer industry. This year, the medal was presented to Alex Nicolaou. Alex graduated from the Faculty of Mathematics with an Honours BMath in Computer Science and Combinatorics and Optimization (1993), and a MMath in Computer Graphics (1999). He was recognized for his innovative and entrepreneurial achievements, and his contributions to the field of computer science through his work at startups and Google where he currently serves as Engineering Director.
In 2018, we also hosted, for the first time, the Wes Graham Research Symposium & Computer Science Awards reception, featuring lectures by our two Wes Graham Research Fellows Bin Ma and Jesse Hoey, and our Wes Graham Research Postdoctoral Fellow Moojan Ghafurian.
