Alfred Spector

Alfred Spector is a prominent computer scientist and research manager currently serving as a Visiting Scholar at MIT.123 His career spans academia, industry, and entrepreneurship, with significant contributions to distributed computing systems and research leadership.14

Career Highlights

• Visiting Scholar at MIT (January 2022 - Present)3
• CTO and Head of Engineering at Two Sigma Investments (2015-2020)13
• Vice President of Research and Special Initiatives at Google (2007-2015)3
• Various senior roles at IBM, including Vice President of Strategy and Technology (CTO) for IBM Software (1998-2005)3
• Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Transarc Corp (1989-1996)3
• Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (1981-1989)3

Education and Achievements

• Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University14
• A.B. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University14
• Fellow of both the ACM and IEEE1
• Member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences12
• Recipient of the 2001 IEEE Kanai Award for Distributed Computing13
• Co-recipient of the 2016 ACM Software Systems Award for work on the Andrew File System (AFS)13

Spector has made significant contributions to distributed computing systems and applications throughout his career.4 He has also been an advocate for the growing importance of computer science across all disciplines, coining the phrase "CS+X".4 Recently, he co-authored a textbook titled "Data Science in Context: Foundations, Challenges, Opportunities".4