Honorary degree citation - Peter J. Denning

By: J.W. Atwood, June 1984

Mr. Chancellor, I have the honour to present to you Peter J. Denning, distinguished educator, administrator, and Computer Scientist. One of the world's best known authorities on operating systems, he is the originator of the Working Set concept, has made important contributions to the study of resource allocation in computer systems, and the effect of programme behaviour on computer system performance. He has done much to improve our understanding of the word "experimental" in Experimental Computer Science.

Since receiving his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he has taught at Princeton and then at Purdue University, where he was head of the Computer Science Department for a number of years. He is now Director of the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science at the NASA-Ames Research Center.

This University gives a high priority to service to the community. Peter Denning has given generously of his time to the Computer Science, and, indeed to the Science and Engineering communities, having served on several committees of the Association for Computing Machinery, culminating in a two-year term as its president. He was Editor in Chief of Computing Reviews, Editor of the Elsevier Series on Operating and Programming Systems, and he now serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Communications of the ACM.

Mr. Chancellor, it is a privilege to present to you, on behalf of the Senate, and by the authority of the Board of Governors, Peter J. Denning, that you may confer on him the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.