Thomas Eugene Kurtz (February 22, 1928 – November 12, 2024) was an American computer scientist and educator. A Dartmouth professor of mathematics, he and colleague John G. Kemeny are best known for co-developing the BASIC programming language and the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System in 1963 and 1964. These innovations made computing more accessible by simplifying programming for non-experts and allowing multiple users to share a single computer, transforming how computers were used in education and research.
For his role in creating BASIC, the IEEE honored Kurtz in 1991 with the Computer Pioneer Award, and in 1994, he was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Early life and education
Thomas Kurtz was born on February 22, 1928, in Oak Park, Illinois, United States, to Helen Bell Kurtz and Oscar Christ Kurtz. His father, a German-American, worked for the Lions Clubs International headquarters, holding various roles. From an early age, Kurtz developed an interest in science.
Kurtz enrolled at Knox College and developed an interest in mathematics, eventually taking every offered course in the subject. Encouraged by his advisor to pursue a career in statistics, he switched his major to mathematics during his senior year. Kurtz graduated from Knox College in 1950 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
From 1966 to 1975, Kurtz served as Director of the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth, and from 1975 to 1978, Director of the Office of Academic Computing. In 1979, he and Stephen J. Garland started a Computer and Information Systems master's program at Dartmouth. After the program ended in 1988, Kurtz returned to teaching, retiring in 1993.
In 1974, the American Federation of Information Processing Societies gave an award to Kurtz and Kemeny at the National Computer Conference for their work on BASIC and time-sharing. In 1991, the IEEE Computer Society honored Kurtz with the Computer Pioneer Award, and in 1994, he was inducted as a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery. In 2023, he was inducted as a fellow of the Computer History Museum, with the award presented by Bill Gates.