Any computer scientist 70 or more years of age today knows almost every other computer scientist of those same ages, as few were in the discipline during its fledgling days. One such individual from that era is Daniel Berry, a professor in the Software Engineering group at the Cheriton School of Computer Science.
During his 50-year career as a computer science professor, he has studied, researched, and taught computer science across three countries and multiple institutions. “Over those years I’ve had the privilege of meeting many of the pioneers in computer science and working with some of them,” Dan said.
Like many of his generation, his love of computers and programming began early. “I started programming in 1965 during the summer between my junior and senior years in high school,” he reflects. “I wrote my first real-world application, a party date matching program, in 1966, during my senior year in high school. As an undergraduate at Rensselaer Polytechnic, I was programming to make some money, but I was firmly a math major. When I got to graduate school at Brown in 1969, I discovered that I had promoted myself to my level of incompetence in math. I saw that Applied Math had just started a Computer Science program. Figuring that I was still competent in that, I moved over to Computer Science. At some point during my graduate studies, Brown changed from giving a PhD in Applied Math with a concentration in Computer Science to a PhD in Computer Science. I was the first, or maybe the second, student at Brown to get a PhD in Computer Science.”
Read more in the feature article on the Cheriton School of Computer Science website.