John Ousterhout

John Ousterhout is Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University. His research addresses a wide range of topics related to infrastructure for building software systems, including distributed systems, operating systems, storage systems, development frameworks, and programming languages. His current research is in the area of granular computing: new software stack layers that allow the execution of large numbers of very small tasks (as short as a few microseconds) in a datacenter. His current projects are developing new techniques for thread management, network communication, and logging. Ousterhout's prior positions include 14 years in industry, where he founded two companies (Scriptics and Electric Cloud), preceded by 14 years as Professor of Computer Science at U.C. Berkeley. He is the creator of the Tcl scripting language and is also well known for his work in distributed operating systems and file systems. Ousterhout received a BS degree in Physics from Yale University and a PhD in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and has received numerous awards, including the ACM Software System Award, the ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award, the National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award, and the U.C. Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award.