John Mashey is a computer scientist, director and entrepreneur.
Mashey holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Pennsylvania State University, where he developed the ASSIST assembler language teaching software. He worked on the PWB/UNIX operating system at Bell Labs from 1973 to 1983, authoring the PWB shell, also known as the "Mashey Shell". He then moved to Silicon Valley to join Convergent Technologies, ending as director of software. He joined MIPS Computer Systems in early 1985, managing operating systems development, and helping design the MIPS RISC architecture, as well as specific CPUs, systems and software. He continued similar work at Silicon Graphics (1992–2000), most recently contributing to the design of the NUMAflex modular computer architecture, ending as VP and chief scientist.
Mashey was one of the founders of the SPEC benchmarking group, was an ACM National Lecturer for four years, has been guest editor for IEEE Micro, and one of the long-time organizers of the Hot Chips conferences. Additionally, he has chaired technical conferences on operating systems and CPU chips, and has given more than 500 public talks on software engineering, RISC design, performance benchmarking and supercomputing. He is now a consultant for venture capitalists and high-tech companies and a trustee of the Computer History Museum. He has written articles for the Skeptical Inquirer regarding climate change denial. In 2010 he published a 250-page critical report on the Wegman Report.[1] Mashey's report concluded that the Wegman report contained plagiarized text. This story reached mainstream news headlines.[2]
Mashey is married to Angela Hey, a Cambridge University and Waterloo University graduate, with a Ph.D. from Imperial College, London.