By: Kateris $cottSubmitted To: Mr. Timothy Holston

$eymour Ginsburg

Personal LifeSy Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York

in 1927He and his wife Dorothy Usiskin were big

supporters of the series of annual All & Everything Conferences.

He has drawn attention to the spiritual contribution of a modern-day Indian guru known as Sri Madhava Ashish.

He died on December 5, 2004. R.I.P

EducationSeymour Ginsburg received his B.S. from City College of

New York in 1948He earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of

Michigan in 1952Ginsburg's professional career began in 1951 when he

accepted a position as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of Miami in Florida. He turned his attention completely towards Computer Science in 1955, when he moved to California to work for the Northrop Corporation.

At System Development Corporation Ginsburg first focused on the theory of abstract machines. He designed and led a research project devoted to formal language theory and the foundations of Computer Science.

Earlier Work Ginsburg's early work was based on automata theory. In 1958,

he proved that "don't-care" circuit minimization does not necessarily give way to a minimal result.

His work in automata theory led the switching theory community into a more thoughtful way. This work ended with the publication of a book on the mathematics of machines in 1962.

He studied context-free grammars and published a well-known comprehensive overview of context-free languages in 1966.

He was the first to observe the connection between context free languages and "ALGOL-like" languages. This brought the field of formal language theory to stand on programming language research. They remain standard tools for many computer scientists working in the areas of formal languages and automata. Many of his papers at this time were co-authored with other prominent formal language researchers, including Sheila Greibach, and Michael A. Harrison, two other computer scientist.

Contribution to Computer ScienceSeymour Ginsburg was a pioneer of

automata theory, formal language theory, database theory, and computer science, in general. His work was influential in distinguishing theoretical Computer Science from the disciplines of Mathematics and Electrical Engineering.

During his career, Ginsburg published over 100 papers and three books on various topics in theoretical Computer Science.