PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Edgar F. Codd

Also known as Edgar Frank Codd, Ted

Edgar Frank Codd was a computer scientist whose research on cellular automata explored self-reproducing computers. He joined IBM in 1949, earned a doctorate at the University of Michigan focused on cellular self-reproduction, and published Cellular Automata in 1968. His 1970 relational model gave database management a theoretical framework and shaped IBM systems such as System R and DB2; he received the ACM Turing Award in 1981. After retiring in 1984, he built database consulting companies and continued writing about relational systems. He died in 2003.

Born
1923
Died
2003

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1942–1949

    Oxford and early IBM work

    After Royal Air Force service during World War II, he earns mathematics degrees at Oxford in 1948. He joins IBM in New York as a mathematical programmer in 1949.

  2. 1965–1968

    A self-reproducing cellular computer

    He completes a doctorate in communication sciences at the University of Michigan in 1965 with a thesis on self-reproduction in cellular automata. In 1968, he publishes Cellular Automata, a book describing a self-reproducing computer made from simple identical cells.

  3. 1970

    The relational model

    At IBM’s San Jose lab, he publishes “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks” in 1970. The model gives database management a theoretical framework and lets users retrieve information through related tables without knowing its physical layout.

  4. 1973

    System R tests relational theory

    IBM programmers begin System R in 1973 as an industrial-strength implementation of the relational model.

  5. 1976–1981

    An IBM Fellowship and Turing Award

    He becomes an IBM Fellow in 1976 and receives the 1981 ACM Turing Award for fundamental and continuing contributions to the theory and practice of database management systems.

  6. 1983

    IBM DB2 reaches mainframes

    IBM DB2, a database product that grows from the System R effort, ships on the MVS mainframe in 1983.

  7. 1984

    Database consulting after IBM

    He retires from IBM in 1984 and establishes two companies to lecture and consult for database-management vendors and users. He continues to write technical papers on the relational model.

  8. 2003

    Death in 2003

    He dies in 2003 at age 79.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI from 1961 to 2025, with a year-by-year chart.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 53% of people in our data with a known employment countryOur estimates of where AI careers are concentrated now and how countries’ shares of dated positions changed over time.
  3. 46% of living people in our data with known birth and employment countries work outside their birth countryOur estimate of cross-border careers in AI, from country of birth and the country of each current organization.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionOur estimates of where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led, from education records in cited biographies.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Edgar F. Codd yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Computer Pioneers - Edgar Frank Codd history.computer.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  2. Edgar F. Codd | IBM ibm.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  3. Memorial Tributes: Volume 12 — Edgar F. Codd nationalacademies.org. Checked 19 October 2026.
  4. The relational database | IBM ibm.com. Checked 19 October 2026.
  5. Turing Awardees - Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) | NSF nsf.gov. Checked 19 October 2026.