Alan Kay

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Alan Kay
Alan Kay holding the prototype of the Dynabook
Born	Alan Curtis Kay (1940-05-17) May 17, 1940 (age 84) Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education	University of Colorado at Boulder (BS) University of Utah College of Engineering (MS, PhD)
Known for	Dynabook Object-oriented programming Smalltalk Desktop metaphor Graphical user interface Windows
Spouse	Bonnie MacBird
Awards	ACM Turing Award (2003) Kyoto Prize Charles Stark Draper Prize
Scientific career
Fields	Computer science
Institutions	Xerox PARC Stanford University Atari Inc. Apple Inc. ATG Walt Disney Imagineering UCLA Kyoto University MIT Viewpoints Research Institute Hewlett-Packard Labs
Thesis	FLEX: A Flexible Extendable Language (1968)
Doctoral advisors	David C. Evans Robert S. Barton
Notable students	David Canfield Smith

Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940)^[1] is an American computer scientist best known for his pioneering work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) design. At Xerox PARC he led the design and development of the first modern windowed computer desktop interface. There he also led the development of the influential object-oriented programming language Smalltalk, both personally designing most of the early versions of the language and coining the term "object-oriented." He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts.^[2] He received the Turing award in 2003.^[3]

Kay is also a former professional jazz guitarist, composer, and theatrical designer. He also is an amateur classical pipe organist.