| Gerald Estrin | |
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Gerald Estrin with his wife Thelma. Santa Monica, California. Sept. 2007
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| Born | New York, USA |
| Fields | Computer Science |
| Institutions | IAS (1950-1956), WIS (1954-1955), UCLA (1956-1991) |
Prof. Gerald Estrin, an IEEE Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the Board of Governors of the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Estrin received his B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin in 1948, 1949, and 1951, respectively.
He served as research engineer in the von Neumann group at IAS from 1950–56, this led to an invitation from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel to direct the WEIZAC Project in 1954-5.
In the late 1950s Estrin came up with the concept of Reconfigurable computing which allows the acceleration of computational processes by using variable configurations of specialised hardware modules in addition to a sequential processing unit. The idea was practically realised as "The Fixed Plus Variable Structure Computer" [1].
He served as Chairperson of the UCLA Computer Science Department from 1979 to 1982 and from 1985 to 1988. He retired in 1991, and was recalled as Professor Emeritus.[2] He is the father of Deborah Estrin, also a UCLA Computer Science professor, and of Judy Estrin.