PHILIP EMEAGWALI

Philip Emeagwali, a Nigerian presently living in the US, won the International Gordon Bell Prize in computer science. He programmed a supercomputer to make 3.1 billion calculations per second and in so doing, solved one of the most difficult computing problems: understanding how oil flows underground so that petroleum companies could maximize its extraction. Modeling oil field flow with a computer requires simulation of the distribution of the oil at tens of thousands of locations throughout the field. At each location, the computer must be programmed to make hundreds of simultaneous calculations at regular intervals to determine such variables as temperature, direction of oil flow, viscosity, pressure and several geological properties of the basin holding the oil.

BRYANT W. YORK

Bryant W. York first became interested in computer science by watching TV in the early 1950s. There were weekly serials like Superman, Buck Rogers, and others in which a mad scientist was operating large clunky computers. He was fascinated by the idea of a mechanical brain. In 1965, as a math major at Brandeis, York was one of four students allowed to take a course in Lisp programming taught by a researcher from the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center. He became hooked on programming and learned several languages quickly. He is currently professor and research director in the Computer Science Department of Portland State University, formerly associate professor and research director for the College of Computer Science at Northeastern University (1991 - 2001) and formerly associate professor of computer science at Boston University (1986 - 1990). During 1990-91, Dr. York spent a one-year rotation as a program director in the Computer Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) directorate of the National Science Foundation where he managed several research and educational programs. He also funded special projects relating to women, minorities, and persons with disabilities and conducted a computer-programming contest at Benjamin Banneker High School in Washington, DC. For his efforts, Dr. York was awarded the NSF's Equal Opportunity Prize in 1991.