CLARENCE ELLIS

COMPUTER SCIENTISTBy J.C. Yordy

HOW IT ALL STARTED

Clarence Ellis was born in Chicago in 1943. At the age of only 15 Ellis got a job at a company nearby to help pay bills. He worked the graveyard shift, which means he worked all night. He mainly prevented break-ins and watched their new computer, but did not mess with it. During his free time at work he read the computer manual and became an expert on it. One day at work the computer ran out of punch cards that weren’t used and Ellis easily fixed the computer with some changes in the settings so it would take used punch cards. This experience changed his life and he decided to go into the computer science field of work.

Computer punch card used in 1950s

Punch card reader used in the 1950s

COLLEGEEllis had to earn a scholarship because he didn’t

have enough money to pay for college. He did manage to get a scholarship to Beloit College in Wisconsin, but he wasn’t nearly as prepared as the other students. He had to stay on campus to study through summer and winter breaks. He wanted to quit, but this was the best chance that he would get, so he stayed. At the beginning of his junior year he and his chemistry professor were asked to put a computer together that was donated to the college. It was the first computer at the college. He finally felt like he belonged there. He was also the only black person at his college. He was a big fan of Dr. King and went to hear the “I Have A Dream speech.”

ACHIEVMENTSEllis also was the first African American to

receive a Ph.D. in computer science in the year 1969! It was awarded at the University of Illinois.

This is Illiac IV, one of the world’s first supercomputers.

Ellis worked on it while

at the University of

Illinois.

CA

REER

He has worked at a lot of

places and has done amazing

stuff. These are places where

he worked: AT&T Bell Telephone

Laboratories IBM Xerox Palo Alto Research

Center Microelectronics and

Computer Tech Company

Los Alamos Scientific Labs

Argonne National labs

WH

Y W

E S

HO

ULD

K

NO

W A

BO

UT H

IM

While working at Xerox he

helped create the idea of

clicking on a graphic

(icons) to start a computer

program or to issue a

command, rather than

typing in lines of computer

codes. This became one

key feature on the Apple

computer and was later

incorporated into Microsoft

Windows operating system.

TEACHING/WHAT HE IS DOING NOW He has taught at many places including

Stanford University, University of Texas, MIT, and Steven Institute of Technology. He has also taught in Taiwan and Paris. Currently he is a Professor Emeritus of computer science at the University of Colorado, where he is also Director of the Collaboration Technology Research Group.

He has authored several books and over 100 scientific reports and articles.