Gerald Estrin (September 9, 1921 – March 29, 2012) was an American computer scientist, and Professor at the UCLA Computer Science Department. He is known for his work on the organization of computer systems, on parallel processing and SARA (system architects apprentice).

Life and work

Estrin received his B.S, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin in 1948, 1949, and 1951, respectively.

Estrin served as research engineer in the von Neumann group at IAS from 1950–56, this led to an invitation from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel to direct the WEIZAC Project in 1954-5.

In the late 1950s Estrin came up with the concept of Reconfigurable computing which allows the acceleration of computational processes by using variable configurations of specialised hardware modules in addition to a sequential processing unit. The idea was practically realised as "The Fixed Plus Variable Structure Computer".

He served as Chairperson of the UCLA Computer Science Department from 1979 to 1982 and from 1985 to 1988. He retired in 1991, and was recalled as Professor Emeritus.