Bill Pugh, A 5-time JavaOne rock star

William Pugh received a B.S. in Computer Science from Syracuse University and received a Ph.D. in Computer Science (with a minor in Acting) from Cornell University. He is currently a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park.

William Pugh is a Packard Fellow, and invented Skip Lists, a randomized data structure that is widely taught in undergraduate data structure courses.

He has also made research contributions in the fields of incremental computation, implementation of functional and object-oriented languages, the use of partial evaluation for hard real-time systems, in techniques for analyzing and transforming scientific codes for execution on supercomputers, and in a number of issues related to the Java programming language, including the development of JSR 133 - Java Memory Model and Thread Specification Revision.

Prof Pugh's current research focus is on developing tools to improve software productivity, reliability and education. Current research projects include FindBugs, a static analysis tool for Java, and Marmoset, an innovative framework for improving the learning and feedback cycle for student programming projects.