“The outstanding Latvian computer scientist Juris Hartmanis (1928-2022), founder of modern mathematical computer science, laureate of the Turing Prize, has passed away,” scientist Andris Ambainis reports on Twitter.
Wikipedia states that Juris Hartmanis was born in 1928 in the family of Latvian army general Mārtiņš Hartmanis. After the occupation of Latvia in 1940, his father was deported to the USSR, where he was killed. At the end of the Second World War, Jura Hartmanis’ mother left Latvia with her children and went as refugees.
They first went to Germany, where Juris obtained the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in physics at the University of Marburg. His family then moved to the United States, where he received a master’s degree in applied mathematics from Kansas City University (now the University of Missouri-Kansas City) in 1951 and a doctorate in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology under Robert Dilworth in 1955. The University of Missouri-Kansas City awarded him an honorary doctorate in May 1999.
In 1958, Hartmanis joined the research laboratory of General Electric. While working at General Electric, he developed the basic principles of computer science. In 1965, he became a professor at Cornell University. There he was one of the founders of the computer science department.
In 2001, he also received the Grand Medal of the Latvian Academy of Sciences.
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