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Global Young Scientists Summit

Jack Dongarra

Meet Jack Dongarra, 2021 Turing Award winner, whose work in supercomputing and high-performance computing has shaped modern numerical software and parallel computing.

Last updated 31 July 2026
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Jack Dongarra
2021 Turing Award

Jack Dongarra is an expert in supercomputing and high-performance computing. He is the winner of the 2021 A.M. Turing Award “for pioneering concepts and methods which resulted in world-changing computations.” He specializes in numerical algorithms in linear algebra, parallel computing, the use of advanced computer architectures, programming methodology, and tools for parallel computers. His research includes the development, testing and documentation of high-quality mathematical software.

Most recently winning the Turing Award, Jack Dongarra also was awarded the IEEE Sid Fernbach Award in 2004 for his contributions to the application of high-performance computers using innovative approaches; in 2008 he was the recipient of the first IEEE Medal of Excellence in Scalable Computing; in 2010 he was the first recipient of the SIAM Special Interest Group on Supercomputing’s award for Career Achievement; in 2011 he was the recipient of the IEEE Charles Babbage Award; in 2013 he was the recipient of the ACM/IEEE Ken Kennedy Award for his leadership in designing and promoting standards for mathematical software used to solve numerical problems common to high-performance computing, in 2019 he was awarded the SIAM/ACM Prize in Computational Science and Engineering, and in 2020 he received the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award for leadership in the area of high-performance mathematical software. He is a Fellow of the AAAS, ACM, IEEE, and SIAM, a Foreign Fellow of the British Royal Society, and a Member of the US National Academy of Engineering.

He received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Chicago State University in 1972 and a Master of Science in Computer Science from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1973. He received his PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of New Mexico in 1980. He worked at the Argonne National Laboratory until 1989, becoming a senior scientist.

He now holds an appointment as a University Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee and holds the title of Distinguished Research Staff in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Turing Fellow at Manchester University; an Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science Department at Rice University. He is the director of the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee. He is also the director of the Center for Information Technology Research at the University of Tennessee which coordinates and facilitates IT research efforts at the University.