Jim Gray (computer scientist)
| Jim Gray | |
|---|---|
Gray in 2006
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| Born |
James Nicholas Gray January 12, 1944 San Francisco, California |
| Disappeared | January 28, 2007 (aged 63) Waters near San Francisco |
| Status | Dead in absentia, May 16, 2012 (aged 68) |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D) |
| Occupation | Computer scientist |
| Employer | |
| Known for | Work on database and transaction processing systems |
| Spouse(s) | Loretta (divorced), Donna Carnes (widowed) |
| Children | 1 (daughter) |
| Awards | Turing Award (1998) |
James Nicholas "Jim" Gray (born January 12, 1944; presumed lost at sea January 28, 2007; declared deceased May 16, 2012) was an American computer scientist who received the Turing Award in 1998 "for seminal contributions to database and transaction processing research and technical leadership in system implementation."
Gray was born in San Francisco, California, the second child of a mother who was a teacher and a father in the U.S. Army; the family moved to Rome where Gray spent most of the first three years of his life, learning to speak Italian before English. The family then moved to Virginia, spending about four years there, until Gray's parents divorced, after which he returned to San Francisco with his mother. His father, an amateur inventor, patented a design for a ribbon cartridge for typewriters that earned him a substantial royalty stream.
After being turned down for the Air Force Academy he entered the University of California, Berkeley as a freshman in 1961, paying $67 per semester. To help pay for college he worked as a co-op for General Dynamics, where he learned to use a Monroe calculator. Discouraged by his chemistry grades, he left Berkeley for six months, returning after an experience in industry he later described as "dreadful." Gray earned his B.S. in Engineering Mathematics (Math and Statistics) in 1966.
After marrying, Gray moved with his wife Loretta to New Jersey, his wife's home state; she got a job as a teacher and he got one at Bell Labs working on a digital simulation that was to be part of Multics. At Bell, he worked three days a week and spent two days as a Master's student at New York University's Courant Institute. The couple planned to work for a year, making "enough money so that we could take off five years and go travel around the world." Before commencing their travel plans, they returned to Berkeley for three months. After about two months travelling, they returned again to Berkeley, their interest in travelling satisfied. Gray entered graduate school with Michael Harrison as his advisor. Gray got his Ph.D. in 1969, in programming languages, which was followed by two years of post-doctoral work for IBM.
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