Citation

The Winners of the Okawa Prize

For pioneering researches in computer architecture, especially RISC
processors, as well as outstanding contribution to and leadership inhigher education.

Dr. John L. Hennessy
Positions and Organizations :President Emeritus, Stanford University
Director, Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, Stanford
University
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,
Stanford University
Degree : Ph.D. (State University of New York, Stony Brook, 1977)
Date of Birth : September 22, 1952
Brief Biography :1973 B.E. Electrical Engineering, Villanova University
1975 M.S. Computer Science, S.U.N.Y., Stony Brook
1977 Ph.D. Computer Science, S.U.N.Y., Stony Brook
1977 Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford
University
1983 Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Stanford
University
Director of Computer System Laboratory, Stanford University
1984 Cofounder & Chief Scientist, MIPS Computer Systems(now part of Imagination Technologies)
1986 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science,Stanford University
1987 Willard and Inez Kerr Bell Endowed Professor, Stanford
University
1992 Chief Architect, Silicon Graphics Computer Systems
1994 Chairman, Department of Computer Science, Stanford
University
1996 Dean, School of Engineering, Stanford University
1999 Provost, Stanford University
2000 President, Stanford University
2016 Shriram Family Director, Knight-Hennessy Scholars
Program, Stanford University
Main Awards and Honors:
1994 IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award
2000 IEEE John Von Neumann Medal (jointly with D. Patterson)
2000 Benjamin Garver Lamme Award, American Society forEngineering Education
2001 Seymour Cray Computer Engineering Award
2001 Eckert-Mauchly Award, ACM and IEEE Computer Society
2004 C&C Prize (jointly with D. Patterson)
2005 Founders Award, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
2007 Fellow, Computer History Museum2012 IEEE Medal of Honor
2013 Carnegie Academic Leadership Award, Carnegie Foundation
2016 Frank E. Taplin Public Intellectual Award, Woodrow
Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and AAAS. Member of NAE, NAS andAmerican Philosophical Society

Main Achievements :He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from
Villanova University, and his master's degree and Ph.D. in computerscience from State University of New York, Stony Brook.
He joined Stanford s faculty in 1977 and focused on theresearch of RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer), which

revolutionized the computer industry by increasing
performance while reducing costs. RISC processors achieved
higher speeds because they operated from a set of simpler
computer instructions than earlier microprocessors. In 1981,
he initiated the MIPS project at Stanford. MIPS is ahigh-performance RISC, built in VLSI. In addition to his role inthe basic research, he played a key role in transferring thistechnology to industry. During a sabbatical leave from
Stanford in 1984-85, he cofounded MIPS Computer Systems(later MIPS Technologies Inc. and now part of Imagination
Technologies), which specializes in the production of chips
based on these concepts. Several billion MIPS microprocessors
have been shipped in devices ranging from video games andcomputers to network devices. The low power-consumption
and heat characteristics of embedded MIPS implementations,
the wide availability of embedded development tools, andknowledge about the architecture means use of MIPS
microprocessors in embedded roles is likely to remaincommon.
He also led the Stanford DASH (Distributed Architecture forShared Memory) multiprocessor project. DASH was the ﬁrst
scalable shared memory multiprocessor with hardware-supported
cache coherence. More recently, he has been involved in FLASH(FLexible Architecture for Shared Memory), which is designed tosupport diﬀerent communication and coherency approaches inlarge-scale shared-memory multiprocessors.
He co-authored, with David A. Patterson from UC Berkeley,
two well-known books on computer architecture, Computer
Organization and Design: the Hardware/Software Interface andComputer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach, which introduced
the DLX RISC architecture. They have been widely used as
textbooks for graduate and undergraduate courses since 1990.
He rose to full professorship in 1986 and became Willard and Inez
Kerr Bell Endowed Professor of Electrical Engineering andComputer Science. He served as director of Stanford s Computer
System Laboratory (1983-1993), chair of the Department ofComputer Science (1994-96), dean of the School of Engineering(1996-99), provost (1999-2000), and president (2000-2016).
Among numerous honors, he received the IEEE Medal ofHonor (2012), Eckert-Mauchly Award of the Association for
Computing Machinery (2001), Seymour Cray Computer
Engineering Award (2001), and IEEE John von Neumann
Medal (2000). He was made a fellow of Computer History
Museum in 2007. He is a fellow of IEEE, the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Association for Computing
Machinery and is a member of the National Academy ofEngineering and the National Academy of Sciences.
He is currently a director of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars
Program, which annually admits 100 high-achieving students
with demonstrated leadership and civic commitment. Upon
admittance to this program, scholars from a wide range ofbackgrounds and nationalities will receive funding for three years topursue masters or doctorate level degrees, or professional programs,
along with leadership education and innovation and othercurricula designed to develop their capacity to lead ambitiouschanges in a complex world.
For pioneering researches in computer architecture, especially
RISC processors, as well as outstanding leadership andcontribution to higher education, Dr. John L. Hennessey ishereby awarded the Okawa Prize.

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