Eric Brewer (scientist)

Eric A. Brewer
Eric Brewer at TNW Conference 2015
Alma mater	Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley
Known for	CAP theorem
Awards	ACM Fellow NAE Member
Scientific career
Fields	Computer science
Institutions	University of California, Berkeley Google
Thesis	Portable High-Performance Supercomputing: High-Level Platform-Dependent Optimization (1994)
Doctoral advisor	William E. "Bill" Weihl
Doctoral students	Nikita Borisov Ian Goldberg David A. Wagner Matt Welsh
Website	www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/

Eric Allen Brewer is professor emeritus of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley[1] and vice-president of infrastructure at Google.[2] His research interests include operating systems and distributed computing. He is known for formulating the CAP theorem about distributed network applications in the late 1990s.[3]

In 1996, Brewer co-founded Inktomi Corporation (bought by Yahoo! in 2003) and became a paper billionaire during the dot-com bubble.[4] Working with the United States federal government during the presidency of Bill Clinton, he helped to create USA.gov, which launched in 2000.[5] His research also included a wireless networking scheme called WiLDNet, which promises to bring low-cost connectivity to rural areas of the developing world.[6] He has worked at Google since 2011.[7]

Education

Brewer received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) from UC Berkeley where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.[8] Later he earned a Master of Science and PhD in EECS from MIT. He received tenure from UC Berkeley in 2000.[9]

Awards

In 1999, he was named to the MIT Technology Review TR100 as one of the top 100 innovators in the world under the age of 35.[10]

In 2007, Brewer was inducted as a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery "for the design of scalable, reliable internet services."[11][12] That same year, he was also inducted into the National Academy of Engineering "for the design of highly scalable internet services."[13]

Brewer is the 2009 recipient[14] of the ACM-Infosys Foundation Award in the Computing Sciences[15] "for his contributions to the design and development of highly scalable Internet services."

In 2009, Brewer received the SIGOPS Mark Weiser Award.[16]

In 2013, the ETH Zurich honored him with the title Dr. sc. tech. (honoris causa).[17]

References

1. "Eric Brewer". Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. University of California, Berkeley. Archived from the original on April 30, 2021. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
2. "Eric Brewer". LinkedIn. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
3. "Lessons from Internet Services: ACID vs. BASE". Archived from the original on 2008-06-24. Retrieved 2008-11-06.
4. "A Fallen Tech Highflier Sifts Through Bubble Memories". Los Angeles Times. July 5, 2004.
5. "About the Website USA.gov". USA.gov. Archived from the original on February 11, 2018. Retrieved June 4, 2018.
6. Patra, Rabin; Nedevschi, Sergiu; Surana, Sonesh; Sheth, Anmol; Subramanian, Lakshminarayanan; Brewer, Eric (April 11–13, 2007). "WiLDNet: Design and Implementation of High Performance WiFi Based Long Distance Networks". 4th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design & Implementation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: 87–100 (NSDI ’07). Archived from the original on 2021-04-30. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
7. Cloud Native [@eric_brewer] (10 May 2011). "I will be leading the design of the next gen of infrastructure at Google. The cloud is young: much to do, many left to reach" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
8. Membership Directory, 2010, Pi Lambda Phi Inc.
9. Wilson, Robin (March 3, 2000). "They May Not Wear Armani to Class, but Some Professors Are Filthy Rich". The chronicle of higher education. Archived from the original on 2021-04-30. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
10. "1999 Young Innovators Under 35". Technology Review. 1999. Archived from the original on October 15, 2012. Retrieved August 15, 2011.
11. "ACM Fellows". Association for Computing Machinery. Archived from the original on 2018-01-28. Retrieved 2008-01-21.
12. "Eric A. Brewer". Association for Computing Machinery. Archived from the original on 2008-02-14. Retrieved 2008-01-21.
13. "Dr. Eric A. Brewer". National Academy of Engineering. Archived from the original on 2008-10-24. Retrieved 2008-01-21.
14. "Media Center". www.acm.org. Archived from the original on 2021-04-26. Retrieved 2021-04-30.
15. "List of recipients of the ACM-InfoSys Foundation Award". ACM (the Association for Computing Machinery). Archived from the original on 2 April 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2010.
16. "The Mark Weiser Award". ACM SIGOPS. Archived from the original on 17 June 2019. Retrieved 5 July 2019.
17. "ETH Day 2013". Archived from the original on 2019-11-19. Retrieved 2021-04-30.

External links

• UC Berkeley website
• More about the CAP Theorem
• Interview with Eric Brewer Archived 2019-09-21 at the Wayback Machine on winning the ACM Infosys Foundation Award by Stephen Ibaraki
• Eric Brewer at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
• Docker conference 2014 Dockercon14 keynote
• Podcast interview with Eric Brewer on the CAP theorem
• Inktomi's Wild Ride - A Personal View of the Internet Bubble