Jack J. Dongarra, a University of New Mexico (UNM) graduate, returned to campus recently to speak with students soon after winning the most prestigious award for computer science.
Dongarra received his doctorate from UNM in 1980 in applied mathematics. During his distinguished career, Dongarra developed algorithms and software that set the foundation for the high-performance computers that are commonplace today. He received the Association of Computing Machinery A.M. Turing Award last year. The Turing Award, often called the Nobel Prize of Computing, comes with a $1 million prize.
Dongarra called the opportunity to share his life stories with students earlier this week “a terrific experience” that he hopes to repeat.
“UNM provided the right environment and atmosphere for that work to go on,” he told KRQE. “Hopefully, that will continue into the future.”