John Mashey

Education

Mashey holds a Doctor of Philosophy in computer science from Pennsylvania State University, where he developed the ASSIST assembler language teaching software.

Career

He worked on the PWB/Uniplex Information and Computing System operating system at Bell Labs from 1973 to 1983, authoring the PWB shell, also known as the "Mashey Shell". He then moved to Silicon Valley to join Convergent Technologies, ending as director of software. He joined MIPS Computer Systems in early 1985, managing operating systems development, and helping design the MIPS RISC architecture, as well as specific CPUs, systems and software.

He continued similar work at Silicon Graphics (1992–2000), most recently contributing to the design of the NUMAflex modular computer architecture, ending as VP and chief scientist

Mashey was one of the founders of the SPEC benchmarking group, was an Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) National Lecturer for four years, has been guest editor for Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Micro, and one of the long-time organizers of the Hot Chips conferences. Additionally, he has chaired technical conferences on operating systems and CPU chips, and has given more than 500 public talks on software engineering, RISC design, performance benchmarking and supercomputing.

He has been credited for being the first to spread the term and concept of Big Data in the 1990s. He is now a consultant for venture capitalists and high-tech companies and a trustee of the Computer History Museum.

He has written articles for the Skeptical Inquirer regarding climate change denial.

In 2010 he published a 250-page critical report on the Wegman Report. Mashey"s report concluded that the Wegman report contained plagiarized text. This story was featured in United States of America Today, and he was interviewed in Science magazine, which stated that he was "spending his retirement years compiling voluminous critiques of what he calls the "real conspiracy" to produce "climate antiscience"." His research has investigated the secretive funding of climate contrarian thinktanks.

Mashey blogs at DeSmogBlog, which focuses on global warming.

Mashey became a scientific and technical consultant for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in 2015. Mashey is married to Angela Hey, a Cambridge University and Waterloo University graduate, with a Doctor of Philosophy from Imperial College, London.

Achievements

• In 2012, he received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award ("Flame Award") "for his contributions to the Uniplex Information and Computing System community since its early days".