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Jack Dongarra
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Jack Dongarra

Creator of the numerical libraries and benchmarks behind supercomputing

18 July 1950 United States Verified by our editors
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Age
76 yrs
Birthday in 254 days
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3
Software library, Ranking
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3
Most recent 2021
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Jack Dongarra is an American computer scientist whose numerical software libraries, including LINPACK, BLAS and LAPACK, let scientific programs run efficiently on supercomputers. He co-founded the TOP500 ranking of the world’s fastest computers and received the Turing Award in 2021.

Biography

Education

Dongarra studied mathematics at Chicago State University, computer science at the Illinois Institute of Technology and earned his PhD in applied mathematics at the University of New Mexico in 1980. He worked at Argonne National Laboratory.

Numerical libraries

At Argonne he helped create LINPACK (1979), a library for linear algebra. He later co-designed BLAS, LAPACK, ScaLAPACK and the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard, which let programs run efficiently on parallel computers.

TOP500

The LINPACK benchmark measures how fast a computer solves a large system of equations. Since 1993 Dongarra and colleagues have used it to compile the TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, published twice a year.

Career

He is a professor emeritus at the University of Tennessee, where he founded the Innovative Computing Laboratory, and held positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Manchester. He received the Turing Award in 2021.

Timeline

  1. 1950

    Born in Chicago, Illinois, United States

  2. 1979

    LINPACK released

  3. 1980

    PhD from the University of New Mexico

  4. 1989

    Joins the University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge

  5. 1992

    LAPACK released

  6. 1993

    First TOP500 list

  7. 1994

    MPI standard

  8. 2021

    Turing Award

Notable works

  • 1979

    LINPACK Software library

  • 1992

    LAPACK Software library

  • 1993

    TOP500 Ranking

Awards and honours

  • Sidney Fernbach Award

    2003

  • Ken Kennedy Award

    2013

  • Turing Award

    2021

Did you know?

  1. 1

    Almost all scientific computing languages, including Python’s NumPy, use LAPACK and BLAS underneath.

  2. 2

    The LINPACK benchmark has been used to rank supercomputers for more than 30 years.

  3. 3

    He has said his work aims to make supercomputers easier for scientists to use.

Connections

Related people

Also born on 18 July

Frequently asked

Who is Jack Dongarra?

Jack Dongarra is an American computer scientist whose numerical software libraries, including LINPACK, BLAS and LAPACK, let scientific programs run efficiently on supercomputers. He co-founded the TOP500 ranking of the world’s fastest computers and received the Turing Award in 2021.

How old is Jack Dongarra?

Jack Dongarra is 76 years old, born on 18 July 1950 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

Where is Jack Dongarra from?

Jack Dongarra was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States.

What is Jack Dongarra known for?

Jack Dongarra is best known for LINPACK; BLAS; LAPACK; MPI; TOP500 list; Turing Award 2021.

What awards has Jack Dongarra received?

Notable honours include Sidney Fernbach Award (2003), Ken Kennedy Award (2013), Turing Award (2021).

References

  1. Jack Dongarra — Wikipedia. Wikipedia. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  2. Official website. netlib.org. Retrieved 4 November 2026.
  3. Jack Dongarra (Q92670) — structured data. Wikidata. Retrieved 4 November 2026.

Includes material from the Wikipedia article “Jack Dongarra”, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. That text is available under the same licence. Learn more

External links

Official website Website Wikipedia
Filed under Open sourceSupercomputingTuring Award Computer ScientistMathematicianProfessor

About this profile

Cite this page

“Jack Dongarra.” TrackFame, last updated 5 November 2026. https://trackfame.com/person/jack-dongarra

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