YEARS ago while attending the seventh grade in Nigeria as
a child, Philip Emeagwali was nicknamed "Calculus" by his classmates. His classmates
thought he was a genius. His uncanny aptitude with numbers had long before earned him the
awe and respect of both his teachers and his fellows students. Today, much of the academic and computer
science community would agree.
Born and raised in Nigeria, Emeagwali was forced to quit school after eighth grade
because of financial constraints. His father, James, a nurse, encouraged his son's interest
and talent in Math and tutored him at night. Emeagwali studied on his own to finish high school and
earn General Certificate of Education from the University of London.
When he was 17, he won a scholarship to Oregon State University where he majored in Math. Emeagwali's academic
carrier in the US began in 1973 following his completion of a course in London, England. In 1977
he earned a BS degree in Mathematics at Oregon State University. Shortly thereafter, he moved on to earn two master's degrees
one in civil engineering at George Washington University, the other in applied mathematics
at the University of Maryland. Emeagwali's doctoral degree was in scientific computing, which he received
from the University of Michigan
Dr. Philip Emeagwali who rose from
an humbe background to win the Gordon Bell Prize which no single individual
has ever won in the field of computer.
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Dr. Philip Emeagwali is an interdisciplinary computer scientist and inventor who developed software that allowed multiple
processors to tackle complex problems simultaneously, paving the way to solving problems once thought unsolvable. He has increased the speed
of a massively parallel computer to as much as 1,000 times faster than a main frame computer and 1,000,000 times faster than a personal computer.
We at the Sketch Press Limited salute the courage of this great Nigerian who has revolutionarised the world with the
knowledge of computer.
Inspired by the complex designs of nature, Emeagwali used geometry
to prove that bees use the most efficient method possible to construct their honeycombs. He reasoned that a computer based on the honeycomb design
could improve efficiency. It did. His design breakthrough allowed 65,000 processors working together to perform the world's
fastest computation at 3.1 billion calculations per second. Emeagwali's computers are currently being used
to forecast the weather and predict future global warming.
Today, Emeagwali is perhaps best known for his 1989 Gordon Bell Prize --- a prize highly coveted in the computing field. Even more impressive
is the fact that Emeagwali's Gordon Bell Prize was the first ever awarded to a single individual and not a team. It was awarded to him for his work
on an oil field extraction computer simulation. His simulation was wrung through a computer that he programmed to work faster than any other computer
in the world: supercomputers included. The rate of computation on his project computer was 3.1 billion computations per second, a rate only possible for a massively parallel computer.
His experiences as a computer research scientist have paid big dividends in several areas of scientific investigation. From the fall of 1991 to the lat summer months of 1993, Emeagwali worked at the
United States Army High Performance Computing Research Centre in Minneapolis. As part of an interdisciplinary effort to create fast, massively parallel computer programs of atmospheric and ocean model, Emeagwali
sought to develop the means to accurately predict changing weather patterns. The result of his research must have drawn the notice of a large crowd of prestigious on lookers since it was in 1993 that he was awarded the computer
scientist of the year award.
In the past several years, Emeagwali has submitted 41 inventions covering seven technologies
to the US Patent and Trademark Office. His St. Paul Minnesota office is full of funding proposals to build prototypes of his ideas. His goal as an independent consultant is to ultimately
create his own company, one that will license and market project of his own design and making. Currently, he is conducting research which, "is inspired by algorithms and structures that I have
observed in nature. These includes designing computers that emulate the structure of botanical trees; arranging the processors of a computer in the configuration of the molecules of certain crystals and bucky balls, and, dividing the domains
of mathematical and computational problems to emulate the structure of bee's honeycomb; or a cluster of soap bubbles."
Other research interests of Emeagwali are, to list but a few; Fluid dynamics, flood forecasting, combustion modeling, and
nature-inspired networks.
Emeagwali has programmed a computer to work faster than any other computer to solve one of the US's 20 most difficult computing
problems; understanding how oil flows underground so that companies could extract the most "Texas gold."
Typically, oil is trapped within rocks-like water in a drenched sponge and oil companied can remove only
5 percent to 50 percent. Now simulations of oil fields which help track the viscous stuff, will take seconds instead of hours, to produce on a computer. In addition, the increased
accuracy may boost the available amount of oil by a few percentage points, Emeagwal says.
In recognition of his immense contribution to the field of computer science, the National Society of Black Engineers has designated Philip Emeagwali, a world reknowned expert in massively parallel computing and oil recovery as the
1996 Pioneer of the Year. The award is the most prestigious recognition bestowed upon individuals
whose "intellectual contributions have benefited all mankind."
Emeagwali received the award and citation on March 30th at this year's annual convention of the National Society of Black Engineers at Nashville, Tennessee. The award
banquet was attended by over 6,000 scientists and engineers from various countries.
He was cited for his discoveries and inventions tha led to the acceptance of massively parallel computing
technology and, in particular, their use in the petroleum industry to recover more oil."
![[Philip Emeagwali]](../../../images/philip/Boston/White_Shirt_Tie_November_1990.gif)
