John L. Hennessy is a visionary computer scientist and academic leader who has profoundly shaped both technological innovation and higher education. He currently serves as Chairman of Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, following his seventeen-year tenure as the tenth President of Stanford University from 2000 to 2016. Hennessy received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Villanova University in 1973 and completed his master's and PhD in computer science at SUNY Stony Brook in 1975 and 1977 respectively. He joined Stanford's faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering and steadily rose through the academic ranks, becoming the Willard R. and Inez Kerr Bell Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Hennessy pioneered the groundbreaking Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) architecture in the early 1980s, a revolutionary approach that dramatically increased computing performance while reducing costs and energy consumption. His seminal work with David Patterson on RISC principles, documented in their influential textbooks, established a new paradigm for processor design that now dominates the industry with approximately 99% of new computer chips implementing RISC technology. For this transformative contribution to computing, Hennessy and Patterson were awarded the 2017 Turing Award, computing's highest honor equivalent to the Nobel Prize. He further demonstrated the commercial viability of his research by co-founding MIPS Computer Systems during his sabbatical in 1984, successfully translating academic innovation into widespread industry adoption.
As Stanford's president, Hennessy orchestrated a remarkable institutional transformation, leading the university through a period of unprecedented growth that included raising $13 billion in donations and significantly expanding the campus infrastructure and research capabilities. His strategic vision reshaped Stanford's academic landscape, particularly through substantial investments in interdisciplinary research, arts initiatives including the creation of an arts district with the Bing Concert Hall, and financial aid programs that made the university more accessible to outstanding students regardless of economic background. Beyond his administrative leadership, Hennessy co-founded Atheros Communications, served on the boards of Cisco Systems and Google, and after stepping down as president, co-founded the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, which has become the world's largest fully endowed graduate scholarship program.
