John Hennessy

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James F. and Mary Lynn Gibbons Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stanford School of Engineering, and the Shriram Family Director of Stanford’s Knight-Hennessy Scholars, Stanford University

John Hennessy (Computer Science and Electrical Engineering) is the James F. and Mary Lynn Gibbons Professor in the Stanford School of Engineering, and the Shriram Family Director of Stanford’s Knight-Hennessy Scholars, the largest fully endowed graduate-level scholarship program in the world. He is chairman of Alphabet and a trustee of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Formerly the tenth president of Stanford, he is also a computer scientist who cofounded MIPS Computer Systems and Atheros Communications. He was awarded the National Science Board Vannevar Bush Award in 2024 and he was co-awarded the Association for Computing Machinery A.M. Turing Prize in 2017. John earned his undergraduate degree from Villanova University and his master’s and doctoral degrees in computer science from Stony Brook University, New York.