John G. Kemeny

John George Kemeny, born Kemény János György on May 31, 1926, in Budapest, Hungary, was a Hungarian-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator. He is widely recognized for co-developing the BASIC programming language in 1964 with Thomas E. Kurtz. Kemeny held the position of the 13th President of Dartmouth College from 1970 to 1981, during which he significantly advanced the integration of computers into college education. He also chaired the presidential commission tasked with investigating the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. Kemeny's family emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1940 to escape anti-Jewish laws, though his grandfather remained and perished in the Holocaust. Kemeny pursued his higher education at Princeton University, earning degrees in mathematics and philosophy, and also took time to work on the Manhattan Project alongside notable figures like Richard Feynman and John von Neumann. He completed his Ph.D. in mathematics in 1949. Early in his career, he also served as Albert Einstein's mathematical assistant. Kemeny made substantial contributions to the field of mathematics, particularly in finite mathematics and Markov chains, co-authoring several influential textbooks. His work with Thomas E. Kurtz on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System (DTSS) alongside BASIC was groundbreaking. After his presidency at Dartmouth, he co-founded True BASIC, Inc. in 1983. John G. Kemeny died on December 26, 1992, in Hanover, New Hampshire, at the age of 66.