Dabbala Rajagopal "Raj" Reddy is a computer scientist and winner of Turing Award, is one of the early pioneers in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence and has served on the faculty of Stanford and Carnegie Mellon (CMU) for over 40 years.
Background
Dabblal Rajagopal Reddy was born on June 13, 1937, in Katoor, India, near Madras. His father, Srdenivasulu Reddy, was an agricultural landlord and his mother, Pitchamma, was a homemaker. Reddy attended the ZP High School at Sri Kalahasti in Chittoor District, and received his Bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Guindy College of Engineering, Madras (now Anna University, Chennai), India, in 1958. After his undergraduate work, he moved to Australia as an exchange student and received a Master’s degree in technology in 1960 from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. Upon finishing his Master’s, he worked as an Applied Science Representative for IBM in Australia. He has worked as a politician, an academic, a scientist, a researcher and a chancellor.
Education
After his undergraduate work, he moved to Australia as an exchange student and received a Master’s degree in technology in 1960 from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. In 1963, Reddy came to Stanford University as a PhD student. In early 1964, he began a class project under John McCarthy.
Career
He is the first person of Asian origin to receive the ACM Turing Award, in 1994, the highest award in Computer Science, for his work in the field of artificial intelligence. In 2005, Reddy was honored as the first recipient of the Mozah Bint Nasser Chair of Computer Science and Robotics. A gift from the Qatar Foundation, the chair was awarded as part of the inaugural celebration honoring the opening of CMU’s new campus in Qatar. Reddy and his colleagues have also made seminal contributions to other areas of artificial intelligence and computer science. Reddy’s accomplishments have led to many awards and honors. In addition to being a co-recipient with Ed Feigenbaum of the ACM Turing Award in 1994, he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.