This Day in History January 6, 1942 Computer researcher Peter
Denning is Born Peter Denning is born. He received a BEE from
Manhattan College in 1965 and a PhD from MIT in 1968. He was
head of the computer science department at Purdue University
(1979-83), co-founder of CSNET and first chair of the CSNET
executive committee (1981-1986), and the founding director of
the Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science at the NASA
Ames Research Center (1983-1990). Since 1991 he has become
Professor of Computer Science at George Mason University. He was
president of the Association for Computing Machinery
(1980-1982), and chair of the ACM publications board (1992-1998)
where he led the development of the ACM digital library. Denning
has published six books and 260 articles on computers, networks,
and their operating systems. Denning published two well-received
papers that established a scientific and rational basis for
virtual memory computer operating systems in 1966 and 1970.