Gerald Sussman
Born 1947 · Age 78
Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT; AI researcher since 1964; co-inventor of Scheme; co-author of SICP; designer of special-purpose computers for orbital mechanics; influential teacher and textbook author.
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Life & Career Timeline
Began involvement in AI research at MIT
Sussman became involved in artificial intelligence research at MIT (start of long-term engagement continuing through his career).
Assigned summer 'vision' project by Marvin Minsky (anecdote)
Story often told: Marvin Minsky tasked his student Sussman to link a camera to a computer and have it describe what it saw (the 'Summer Vision Project' anecdote illustrating early AI optimism).
Received S.B. in Mathematics from MIT
Earned Bachelor of Science (SB) degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Received Ph.D. in Mathematics from MIT
Awarded Ph.D. (thesis: 'A Computational Model of Skill Acquisition') under Seymour Papert; introduced computational model HACKER for skill acquisition.
Joined MIT faculty
After receiving his Ph.D., Sussman joined the MIT faculty (appointment to faculty in 1973).
Co-invented the Scheme programming language
Together with his student Guy L. Steele Jr., Sussman designed the Scheme dialect of Lisp (core principles established in 1975).
First Scheme hardware chips (Scheme-78 project)
Guy Steele (and collaborators) made early Scheme hardware chips; Sussman involved in the effort to realize Scheme in hardware (Scheme-78/Scheme-79 lineage begins around this period).
Scheme-79 chip designed and tested
Design and implementation effort produced the Scheme-79 chip (worked and demonstrated microcoded Scheme hardware capabilities).
Scheme-81 chip development
Larger 32-bit Scheme-81 microcoded chip was developed (microcode support for Scheme OS, garbage collection, coprocessor bus). Only one run produced chips that worked unreliably due to a layout issue.
Sabbatical at Caltech and collaboration with Jack Wisdom begins
Sussman spent sabbatical time with Caltech Theoretical Astrophysics group (1983–1984), collaborating with Jack Wisdom on orbital mechanics experiments and planning special-purpose hardware.
Returned to MIT; collaboration with Wisdom continues
After sabbatical Sussman returned to MIT and collaborated with Jack Wisdom (then new faculty) on long-term orbital integrations using special hardware.
Published 'Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs' (SICP) book
Co-authored SICP with Hal Abelson and Julie Sussman (MIT Press / McGraw-Hill, 1985). Text became a foundational intro CS textbook used at MIT for decades.
Published 'A Digital Orrery' (IEEE Transactions on Computers)
Paper describing the special-purpose Digital Orrery machine for high-precision orbital integrations (design and results).
Free Software Foundation founding director (FSF)
Sussman is a founding director of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and served on its board; FSF was established mid-1980s (Sussman listed as founding director).
SICP full lecture videos recorded (MIT course videos)
Twenty-lecture version of the MIT SICP course (Abelson and Sussman) was recorded in July 1986 and widely distributed as influential teaching material.
Published evidence Pluto's motion is chaotic (Science)
Coauthored paper with Jack Wisdom reporting numerical evidence that Pluto's motion is chaotic (Science, July 22, 1988).
Elected ACM Fellow
Named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions to computer science and education.
Received ACM Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award
Awarded the Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for contributions to computer-science education (often cited as 1990).
Received Amar G. Bose Award for Teaching
Recognized by MIT / Amar G. Bose award (commonly cited as 1992) for excellence in teaching.
Published 'Chaotic Evolution of the Solar System' (Science)
Coauthored Science article (July 3, 1992) extending orbital mechanics discoveries to broader planetary system dynamics.
Published 'The Supercomputer Toolkit' paper
Paper describing a multiprocessor toolkit optimized for evolving ODE systems, used in planetary-system computations (1992).
SICP second edition published
Second edition of Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs published (1996) — continued global influence as a textbook.
Publication: 'Sparse Representations for Fast, One-shot learning'
Published work with Kenneth Yip on sparse representations (Proc. of National Conference on Artificial Intelligence, July 1997).
Publication: 'Cellular Gate Technology' (UMC98)
Coauthored 'Cellular Gate Technology' (Proc. UMC98) with Thomas F. Knight — contribution to unconventional computation topics.
Lectured at ArsDigita University; 'The Legacy of Computer Science' video
Delivered a recorded lecture (2001) archived as 'The Legacy of Computer Science' for ArsDigita University (publicly available video).
Talk 'Formalizing Science' at NECSI
Gave a talk 'Formalizing Science' for the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) on June 11, 2002 (video available).
Published 'The Art of the Propagator' (conference paper)
Coauthored 'The Art of the Propagator' (MIT-CSAIL-TR-2009-002; abridged in Proc. 2009 International Lisp Conference).
Published 'Revised Report on the Propagator Model'
Coauthored documentation/system report (August 2010) on propagator model work with Alexey Radul.
Attended Mindshift Conference hosted by Jeffrey Epstein and Al Seckel
Sussman attended the Mindshift conference in the U.S. Virgin Islands (2011) — later said he learned of Epstein allegations only after the event.
Keynote at Strange Loop
Gave the keynote 'We Really Don't Know How To Compute!' at the Strange Loop conference (Sept 19, 2011).
Published 'Functional Differential Geometry' (monograph)
Coauthored monograph 'Functional Differential Geometry' with Jack Wisdom and Will Farr (MIT Press, 2013).
Second edition of 'Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics' (SICM)
SICM (with Jack Wisdom) second edition published (MIT Press, 2014) capturing computational approaches to classical mechanics.
Talk for LispNYC: 'Flexible Systems, The Power of Generic Operations'
Delivered a public talk for LispNYC (January 2016) on programming and generic operations (video available).
Published 'Software Design for Flexibility' (book)
Coauthored (with Chris Hanson) 'Software Design for Flexibility' (MIT Press, 2021).
Received IEEE Educational Activities Board Major Education Innovation Award
Recognized (2023) for inspiring students through 'structure and interpretation' approach and MIT courses (award cited on MIT biography).
Received IEEE Computer Society Taylor L. Booth Education Award
Awarded the Taylor L. Booth Education Award (announced/published in 2024) for long-lasting inspirational teaching via functional programming.
Still active founding director on the Free Software Foundation board
As of 2024/2025 Sussman is listed among founding directors still active on the FSF board.
Named Panasonic (Matsushita) Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT (holds named chair)
Holds the Panasonic (formerly Matsushita) Professorship in Electrical Engineering at MIT (title in current MIT profiles).
Career summary: >50 graduate students supervised; broad interdisciplinary impact
By 2025 Sussman has supervised nearly 50 PhD students and influenced generations of undergraduates; influential across AI, programming languages, VLSI, astrophysics, and engineering education.
Personal: Married to Julie Sussman; hobbies and memberships
Married to Julie Sussman; bonded locksmith; watchmaking and amateur telescope-making enthusiast; life member of AWCI; member of ATMOB, MWCA, ARRL.
Estimated net worth (approx.)
Estimated public-net-worth proxy for an emeritus tenured MIT professor, textbook author, and long-time researcher (includes modest royalties and benefits).
Key Achievement Ages
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