Pace University
Honorary Doctor of Science Degree 2002

Citation


Peter J. Denning



Your leadership and innovation, Peter Denning, have brought major contributions to the fields of education and technology.

Currently Professor of Computer Science and Chair of the Technology Council at George Mason University, you earned your PhD from MIT and your BEE from Manhattan College. Today we honor you for your academic leadership and many innovations in technology.

You have previously served as Vice Provost for Continuing Education, Associate Dean for Computing, and Chair of the Computer Science Department in the School of Information Technology and Engineering at George Mason.

You began your academic career in 1968 at Princeton. Four years later you moved to Purdue and evantually serviced as head of the Computer Sceicne Department. In 1983 you became founding Director fo the Research Institute for Advanced Comptuer Science at NASA's Ames Research Center. You founded the Center for the New Engineer at George Mason in 1993. Over these years you have been a tireless advocate for teaching and communication excellence in computer science.

Among your major innovations is your invention of the working set model for program behavior. You helped establish virtual memory as a permanent part of operating systems. In addition, you made seminal contributions to the field of compter performance evaluation and you co-founded CSNET, the bridge between the old ARPANET and the modern Internet.

Your professional affiliations include a two-year term as President of the Association for Computing Machine. In six years as Chair of the ACM Publications Board, you led the development of the ACM digitla library. You currently Chair the ACM Education Board.

You have published 7 books and over 280 articls on computers, networks, and their operating systems. You are presently working on three more books.

This spring, you were awarded one of George Masson's coveted Teaching Excellence Awards and were selected for the annual teaching excellence award of your School of Information Technology and Engineering. You also hold two honorary degrees, three professional society fellowships, two best-paper awards, two distinguished service awards, the ACM Outstanding Contribution Award, the ACM SIGCSE Outstanding CS Educator Award, and the prestigious ACM Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award.

In recognition of your outstanding professional as well as academic accomplishments and innovation, Pace University proudly confers upon you the degree of Doctor of Science, honoris causa, with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereunto.