Alfred V. Aho

Timeline

1. 1963–1967

   Physics and computing degrees

   He earns a degree in engineering physics at the University of Toronto in 1963 and master's and PhD degrees in electrical engineering/computer science at Princeton in 1967.

2. 1967–1991

   String matching at Bell Labs

   At Bell Labs from 1967 to 1991, he develops algorithms for text processing and programming-language translation. He writes early versions of the UNIX tools egrep and fgrep; the fgrep implementation becomes the Aho-Corasick algorithm.

3. 1974–1977

   Books on algorithms and compilers

   In 1974, he publishes The Design and Analysis of Computer Algorithms with John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman. In 1977, he and Ullman publish Principles of Compiler Design.

4. 1977

   Co-creating AWK

   With Peter J. Weinberger and Brian W. Kernighan, he creates AWK, whose original version appears at AT&T Bell Laboratories in 1977.

5. 1995–2003

   Columbia and Bell Labs leadership

   He joins Columbia's Department of Computer Science in 1995 and chairs it from 1995 to 1997, then again in spring 2003. From 1997 to 2002, he serves as director and vice president of Bell Labs' Computing Sciences Research Center; he returns to Columbia in 2002.

6. 2003

   The John von Neumann Medal

   IEEE awards him the 2003 John von Neumann Medal for contributions to computer-science foundations, algorithms, and software tools.

7. 2020

   An ACM Turing Award

   He and Jeffrey Ullman share the 2020 ACM Turing Award for fundamental algorithms and theory underlying programming-language implementation and for their books on these topics.

8. As of October 2026

   Professor emeritus at Columbia

   As of October 2026, he is the Lawrence Gussman Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at Columbia University. His listed interests include compilers, software engineering, algorithms, and quantum computing.