Interview: Jack Dongarra Wins the 2021 ACM A.M. Turing Award

The Association for Computing Machinery recently named University of Tennessee professor Dr. Jack Dongarra as the winner of the 2021 ACM A.M. Turing Award, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Computing,” and named for Alan M. Turing, the British mathematician who articulated the mathematical foundations and limits of computing. Dongarra has spent more than 50 years in a career of computational science. He is UT’s Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, and he holds appointments with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Manchester. Dongarra is only the third person to win the award for computational science. He spoke with WUOT’s Chrissy Keuper about his career, the development of supercomputers, and what it means to receive such a prestigious award in his field.