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Kristen NygaardNorwegian computer scientist, Turing Award winner.
Date of Birth: 27.08.1926
Country:  Norway |
Content:
Biography of Kristen Nygaard
Kristen Nygaard was a Norwegian scientist in the field of computational systems theory and a Turing Award laureate. He was one of the developers of the foundations of object-oriented programming, along with Ole-Johan Dahl, as well as the first object-oriented programming language, Simula.
Early Life and Education
Kristen Nygaard received his master's degree in mathematics in 1956. His master's thesis was titled "Theoretical Aspects of Monte Carlo Methods".
Career
From 1948 to 1960, Nygaard worked at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, leading the operations research department for the last three years. In 1960, he became the director of the Norwegian Computing Center. He also taught at the University of Aarhus in Denmark in 1975-76. From 1977, Nygaard held a professorship at the University of Oslo, where he collaborated with Ole-Johan Dahl on the theory of object-oriented programming languages. Together, they developed the first object-oriented language, Simula I, and later, Simula 67. They introduced concepts such as classes, objects, inheritance, and dynamic object creation, which are now fundamental to all modern object-oriented programming languages, including Java and C++.
In 1987, Kristen Nygaard served as a visiting professor at Stanford University, as well as at Xerox PARC and Apple. In August 2000, he was honored as a Knight of the Order of St. Olav. Along with Dahl, Nygaard was awarded the Turing Award in 2001 and the IEEE John von Neumann Medal in 2002 for their significant contributions to the field of computer science. He was also a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science.
Personal Life and Recognition
Kristen Nygaard married Johanna Nygaard on January 27, 1951. Johanna worked for the Norwegian Agency for Aid to Developing Countries (NORAD). They raised three children together and have seven grandchildren. Nygaard passed away from a myocardial infarction at the age of 75, surviving his colleague Ole-Johan Dahl by just a month.
In addition to his contributions to computer science, Nygaard received several honorary doctorates, including from Lund University and Aalborg University. He was also awarded the Norbert Wiener Award for Social and Professional Responsibility in 1990 and the Rosing Prize from the Norwegian Data Association in 1999, both shared with Ole-Johan Dahl. Nygaard was granted honorary membership in the Object Management Group in 2000.
