Jack Minker

Appeared in Volume 10/1, February 1997

The following was published in the University of Maryland Outlook Magazine on September 24th, 1996

Jack Minker
Professor of Computer Science
Email: minker@cs.umd.edu

A pioneer in the field of computer science and a tireless advocate of human rights for scientists, Jack Minker has been a valued member of the university community for nearly 30 years. He is largely responsible for the growth of the university's department of computer science into a nationally acclaimed graduate program.

An internationally recognized authority in the area of artificial intelligence, deductive databases and logic programming, Minker has authored more than 150 refereed publications and edited four books. A faculty member since 1967, he was the first permanent chair of the department of computer science, and served in that capacity from 1974 to 1979. Under his stewardship, the department achieved an international reputation for scholarly excellence.

Minker is also known internationally for his efforts on behalf of politically oppressed scientists. He has served as vice-chair of the Committee of Concerned Scientists since 1973, and was vice-chair of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights of the Association for Computing Machinery from 1977 to 1990. He was instrumental in the struggle for the release of scientists Anatoly Shcharansky and Aleksandr Lerner from the Soviet Union, and led a delegation to the Soviet Embassy in order to obtain medical assistance for Andrei Sakharov and his wife while they were in exile in Gorky. For his humanitarian efforts, he received the Association for Computing Machinery's Outstanding Contribution Award in 1985.

Minker has served as chair of the Computer Science Advisory Board to the National Science Foundation and the national program chair of the Association for Computer Machinery, and was a member of the NASA Study Group for Machine Intelligence and Robotics.

An acclaimed teacher, he receives praise from both his undergraduate and graduate students, and has endowed, in memory of his late wife, the Jack and Rita G. Minker Fellowship in Computer Science at the University of Maryland.