TURING AWARD SCIENTISTS: CONTRIBUTION AND RECOGNITION IN COMPUTER SCIENCE A Dissertation Presented to The Academic Faculty by Irina Nikiforova In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the History and Sociology of Technology and Science in the School of History, Technology, and Society Georgia Institute of Technology August, 2012 COPYRIGHT 2012 BY IRINA NIKIFOROVA TURING AWARD SCIENTISTS: CONTRIBUTION AND RECOGNITION IN COMPUTER SCIENCE Approved by: Dr. Mary Frank Fox, Advisor Dr. Kenneth Knoespel School of Public Policy School of History, Technology, & Society Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Wenda Bauchspies Dr. John Walsh School of History, Technology, & Society School of Public Policy Georgia Institute of Technology Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. Amanda Damarin Dr. Gerhard Sonnert Department of Sociology Center for Astrophysics Georgia Perimeter College Harvard University Date Approved: April 23, 2012 To my grandmother, Alexandra Fedorovna, and to those women and men who in their seemingly ordinary lives achieve extraordinary results ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people and organizations directly and indirectly contributed to this project. My appreciation goes to my advisor, Dr. Mary Frank Fox, for her support, patience, and guidance. Dr. Fox supported my graduate studies in a multitude of ways (including financially) from my first year at Georgia Tech (2004) to graduation. Her research lab provided the environment where, in addition to research, I learned about the norms, values, and the quality of research products, as well as the art and science of getting things done. Dr. Fox set an exceptional example of success for all her students that I aspire to live up to in my professional career. I would also like to thank my committee for their valuable comments throughout the development of this dissertation. Dr. Damarin helped to clarify theoretical foundations. Dr. Bauchspies encouraged taking a more critical perspective. Dr. Walsh raised challenging questions that were constructive and extremely helpful. Dr. Sonnert provided critical suggestions regarding the design of the study for which I am very grateful. Data collection was facilitated by a few key people and organizations. I would like to thank the Association for Computing Machinery and the Charles Babbage Institute for providing fellowships for archival visits. My department of History, Technology, and Society supported one archival trip, and I thank Dr. Krige for his support of research, and Ladonna Bowen-Chavers for her excellent academic advising over the years. Finding and ordering materials at the Georgia Tech library was facilitated by Betty Finn, Bruce Henson, Katharine Calhoun, and Jay and RaeAnne Forrest. Access to the vast collection of the Georgia State University library and Atlanta-Fulton Public Library Gale Virtual Reference Database was indispensable. My gratitude extends to a number of other libraries, their staff, and my friends who provided various assistance, in particular, Hedva Milo from the Weizmann Institute of Science Libraries, Aurora Schmidt from Carnegie Mellon University, and Kata Zsofia Vincze from Eötvös Loránd University. To get to this point in my career I crossed great distances, embraced new cultures, and learned in new languages, and disciplines. I am fortunate to have excellent teachers, iv Jane Chisholm and Earle Bidwell, who provided guidance and helped to refine my expressions. I very much enjoyed the company, discussions, and mutual learning with colleagues at our research lab: Holly Brown, Hillary Alberta, Hallie Willis, and Jiyoung Yun. And last but not the least, I thank my families, Russian and American, and two very close friends who became my family, Muslim Baig and Balazs Aron Vincze, for their love and support during these years. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv LIST OF TABLES ix LIST OF FIGURES xi LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS xii SUMMARY xiv CHAPTER CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Research Questions 2 Significance of the Study 5 Context of the Study 8 Theoretical Perspectives 10 Hypotheses 18 Corresponding Models 26 Methods and Organization of Chapters 26 CHAPTER 2: THE FORMATION, HISTORY, AND NATURE OF THE FIELD OF COMPUTING 28 History 28 Formation of Computer Science 33 Nature of Computing 50 Conclusion 58 CHAPTER 3: METHODS 61 First Question 62 Second Question 65 vi CHAPTER 4: AWARD-WINNING CONTRIBUTIONS 88 Introduction 88 Questions 92 Background 93 Findings 94 Conclusion 112 CHAPTER 5: EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENTS OF THE AWARDEES 118 Introduction 118 Findings 120 Discussion 137 Conclusion 143 CHAPTER 6: CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE AWARDEES 145 Introduction 145 Background 147 Findings 150 Correlation Analysis 155 Logistic Regression Analysis 159 QCA Analyses 163 Discussion and Conclusion 168 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSIONS 176 Summary 176 Implications 183 Limitations of the Study 190 Contributions 190 vii APPENDIX A: NOTE ON ORIGIN OF THE TURING AWARD AND COMPARISON WITH THE NOBEL PRIZE 193 APPENDIX B: NOTE ON INDUSTRY SCIENTISTS, TURING AWARD WINNERS WITH A PH.D., N=3 198 APPENDIX C: NOTE ON WOMEN TURING AWARD WINNERS, N=2 200 APPENDIX D: COLLECTED DATA AND VARIABLES 205 APPENDIX E: NOTES ON THE RANKING OF INSTITUTIONS 208 APPENDIX F: TURING AWARD COMMITTEE AND THE DIVISION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY 211 APPENDIX G: PUBLICATION PRACTICES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE 213 APPENDIX H: DOCTORATES AWARDED, BY MAJOR FIELD, 1920-99 217 APPENDIX I: DEVIATIONS AND IMPORTANCE OF DEGREES 218 REFERENCES 221 viii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2.1: Universities offering a computer science Ph.D. curriculum in 1967 42 Table 2.2: Growth of ACM membership, 1947-1961 45 Table 2.3: Growth of Computer Installations, 1950-1975 45 Table 2.4: Evolution of the foci of the ACM, 1947-2010 49 Table 3.1: Independent Variables Used for Comparative Analyses 76 Table 3.2: Proposed Models of Recognition 84 Table 3.3: Factors Relevant to Recognition by Turing Award used in QCA 86 Table 4.1: Time Profile of Turing Award Winners (1966-2008), N=55 94 Table 4.2: Types of Contributions Acknowledged in Award Citations (1966-2008), N=101 95 Table 4.3: Areas of Awarded Contributions Across Decades (1966-2008), N=56 97 Table 4.4: Sub-areas of Awarded Contributions Across Decades (1966-2008), N=56 98 Table 5.1: Turing Award Winners (1966-2008) by Country of Affiliation, N=55 122 Table 5.2: Universities Attended for the Last Degree Received by Turing Award Winners (1966-2008), N=55 126 Table 5.3: Fields of Study for the Last Degree Received by Turing Award Winners (1966-2008), N=55 127 Table 5.4: Productivity and Impact Measures of Advisors of Turing and Control Group Scientists at Different Time Periods 130 Table 5.5: Productivity and Impact Measures for Turing Award (N=30) and Control Group (N=30) Students Compared to Their Advisors (N=30) 134 Table 5.6: Productivity and Impact Measures for Turing and Control Group Students Who Published With Their Advisors (N=13) Compared to Their Advisors (N=30) 135 Table 5.7: Place of First Job of Turing Award (N=30) and Control Group (N=30) Scientists, 1930s-1980s 136 ix Table 6.1: Years of Experience of Turing and Control Group Scientists in a Sector as a Percentage of Work History (from Graduation Year up to the Year of the Turing Award) 149 Table 6.2: Years of Experience of Turing and Control Group Scientists in Different Institutional Units as a Percentage of Work History (from Graduation Year up to the Year of the Turing Award) 150 Table 6.3: Descriptive Statistics, Career Measures for Turing Award and Control Group Scientists 151 Table 6.4: Sectors of Employment of Turing and Control Group Scientists for their First Jobs, 1930s-1980s 152 Table 6.5: Pairwise Correlations Among Variables 156 Table 6.6: Results of Logistic Regression for Models 1 and 2: Turing Award (N=30) and Control Group Scientists (N=30), 1966-2008 161 Table 6.7: Results of Logistic Regression for Models 3, 4 and 5: Turing Award and Control Group of Scientists, 1966-2008 162 Table 6.8: QCA, The Most Frequent Combinations of the Six Conditions 165 Table 6.9: QCA Complex Solution Explaining Winning Outcome 166 Table 6.10: QCA Parsimonious Solution Explaining Winning Outcome 167 Table C.1: Descriptive Statistics: Career Measures for Women and Men Computer Scientists 204 Table D.1: Collected Data: Variables and Their Definitions 203 x LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1.1: Representation of Factors Associated with the Receipt of the Turing Award 25 Figure 4.1: Major Areas of Contributions Awarded Over Time (1966-2008), N=56 96 Figure 4.2: Sub-areas of Contributions Awarded Over Time (1966-2008), N=56 96 Figure 5.1: Percentage of Terminal Degrees Received by Turing Award Winners (N=55), Over Time (1930s-1980s) 123 Figure 5.2: Types of Terminal Degrees Received by Turing Award Winners (N=55), Over Time (1930s-1980s) 124 Figure 5.3: Fields of Degree Pursued by Turing Award Scientists (N=55), Over Time 128 Figure H.1: Doctorates Awarded, by Major Field, 1920-1999 215 xi LIST OF SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS AAAI American Association for Artificial Intelligence ACL Association for Computational Linguistics ACM Association for Processing Machinery AEC Atomic Energy Commission AFIPS American Federation of Information Processing Societies AIEE American Institute of Electrical Engineers ASCC Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator ASIS American Society for Information Science AT&T American Telephone and Telegraph Company (Corporation) Caltech California Institute of Technology CBI Charles Babbage Institute