David Patterson, professor of computer science

David A. Patterson is the Pardee Professor of Computer Science; director of the Reliable Adaptive Distributed computing Laboratory (RAD Lab); and director of the Parallel Computing Laboratory (Par Lab).

He is the first in his family to graduate from college and he enjoyed it so much that he didn’t stop until he received a Ph.D. (UCLA '76). He then joined UC Berkeley, where he and his colleagues developed innovations in the design of microprocessors, storage systems, and warehouse-sized computers. Three of these innovations each led to billion dollar industries (Reduced Instruction Set Computers, Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks, and Networks of Workstations). He was elected chair of the Computer Research Association and president of the Association for Computing Machinery and served as chair of Berkeley’s computer science division.

All this led to about 200 papers, five books, and about 30 of honors for research, teaching, and service, including election to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, the Silicon Valley Engineering Hall of Fame, being named a fellow of the Computer History Museum, the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award, the ACM Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award, and the IEEE Mulligan Education Medal.