John McCarthy (computer scientist)

John McCarthy
McCarthy at a conference in 2006
Born	(1927-09-04)September 4, 1927 Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	October 24, 2011(2011-10-24) (aged 84) Stanford, California, U.S.
Education	California Institute of Technology (BS) Princeton University (MS, PhD)
Known for	Artificial intelligence, Lisp, circumscription, situation calculus
Spouse(s)	Vera Watson (her death, 1978) Carolyn Talcott
Awards	Turing Award (1971) Computer Pioneer Award (1985) IJCAI Award for Research Excellence (1985) Kyoto Prize (1988) National Medal of Science (1990) Benjamin Franklin Medal (2003)
Scientific career
Fields	Computer science
Institutions	Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dartmouth College, Princeton University
Doctoral advisor	Donald C. Spencer
Doctoral students	Ruzena Bajcsy Ramanathan V. Guha Barbara Liskov Hans Moravec Raj Reddy

John McCarthy (September 4, 1927 – October 24, 2011) was an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist. He was one of the founders of the discipline of artificial intelligence.^[1] He co-authored the document that coined the term "artificial intelligence" (AI), developed the programming language family Lisp, significantly influenced the design of the language ALGOL, popularized time-sharing, and invented garbage collection.

McCarthy spent most of his career at Stanford University.^[2] He received many accolades and honors, such as the 1971 Turing Award for his contributions to the topic of AI,^[3] the United States National Medal of Science, and the Kyoto Prize.