Donald Ervin Knuth is an American computer scientist and mathematician. He is a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer science. Knuth has been called the "father of the analysis of algorithms".
Knuth in 2011
The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in the field of computer science and is often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing".
Alan Turing, after whom the award is named
Image: Maurice Vincent Wilkes 1980 (3, cropped)
Image: Marvin Minsky at OLP Cc
Image: John Mc Carthy Stanford