Dr. John Hennessy

Biography

John L. Hennessy joined Stanford’s faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor in electrical engineering and rose through the academic ranks to full professorship in 1986. He served as the inaugural Willard R. Inez Kerr Bell Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from 1987 to 2004. From 1983 to 1993, Hennessy was the director of the Computer Systems Laboratory, a research and teaching center operating in the Departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He chaired the Computer Science department from 1994 to 1996 and was dean of the School of Engineering from 1996 to 1999, where he initiated a five-year plan that laid the groundwork for new activities in bioengineering and biomedical engineering. Hennessy was appointed provost in 1999, and subsequently became Stanford University’s 10th president in October 2000, a position he held until 2016. In that year, he co-founded the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, which offers scholarships for leadership development to scholars enrolled in graduate programs at Stanford. Hennessy is a pioneer in computer architecture, known for his work on RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computer) technology, which revolutionized the computer industry by increasing performance while reducing costs. He co-founded MIPS Computer Systems in 1984, contributing to advancements in microprocessor design. Hennessy has received numerous awards, including the IEEE John von Neumann Medal and the ACM Eckert-Mauchly Award, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He has authored widely used textbooks in computer architecture and served on various academic and professional boards.

Research Interests

Courses