Weizenbaum biography

German American computer scientist (–)

Joseph Weizenbaum (8 January – 5 March ) was a German Americancomputer scientist and a professor at MIT. The Weizenbaum Award and the Weizenbaum Institute are named after him.

Life and career

Born in Berlin, Germany to Jewish parents, he escaped Nazi Germany in January , immigrating with his family to the United States. He started studying mathematics in at Wayne State University, in Detroit, Michigan.

In , he interrupted his studies to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps as a meteorologist, having been turned down for cryptology work because of his "enemy alien" status. After the war, in , he returned to Wayne State, obtaining his B.S.

in Mathematics in , and his M.S. in ^[1][2]

Around , as a research assistant at Wayne, Weizenbaum worked on analog computers and helped create a digital computer. In , he worked for General Electric on ERMA, a computer system that introduced the use of the magnetical