I attended college at MIT, receiving a B.S. (mathematics) and M.S. (electrical engineering) in 1972, and a Ph.D. (computer science) in 1974.

Since graduating, I have worked in IBM's Research Division as a research staff member, except for 18 months in 1979-80 as technical assistant to the director of research. I started in 1974 at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, and in 1982 moved to what is now the Almaden Research Center.

In 1996 I was named an ACM Fellow.

One of my hobbies is acoustic guitar (steel string, fingerstyle).