MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science EECS Great Educators

Born in Oklahoma City in l938, Professor Martin received his S.B., S.M. and Ph.D. degrees at MIT in 1960, 1962, and 1967, respectively. His first faculty appointment was as Assistant Professor of Management in the Sloan School in 1968. In l972 he was named Associate Professor of Computer Science and Management.

Less than ten years later his brilliant career as an innovative software-development engineer was unfortunately cut short. Professor Martin was in the process of being promoted to the rank of full professor when he died of cancer on June 2, 1981, at age 43. His promotion was granted posthumously.

Professor Martin was an outstanding member of the computer science faculty of our department. His expertise was in the application of artificial-intelligence principles to complex, practical problems in a variety of fields. He used his vast insights about AI concepts to develop powerful computer-based analytical tools for applied mathematicians, business managers and computational linguists. In these activities he always involved a substantial number of undergraduate and graduate students in both the EECS department and the Sloan School. During his short career, he supervised thirty-two theses, including six that were at the doctoral level.

Professor Martin began his professional career in the research group that was developing the complex AI system MACSYMA, whose name was an acronym for Project MAC's SYmbolic MAnipulator. As co-leader of the group, Professor Martin was a major contributor of ideas. His ability to identify fundamental principles that underlie the methodologies mathematicians use to solve formulas and equations, together with his excellent managerial skills, led to a highly successful AI-based tool that proved to be immensely valuable to the user community.

Upon completion of MACSYMA Professor Martin turned his attention to the topic of automatic programming. He designed a system which he called PROTOSYSTEM-1, which translated high-level descriptions of business processes and objectives into code in traditional programming languages. To lessen the skill level required for inputting data, he then conceived of and developed a language which he called HIBOL (HIgh-level Business Oriented Language), in which business analysts, unskilled as computer programmers, could easily specify organizational and data relation-ships for businesses.

While PROTOSYSTEM was being developed, Professor Martin came to appreciate the need for a new natural-language interface between users and central processors. This interface was, in his mind, required to simplify the user's inputting task. This perception led Professor Martin into the field of computational linguis-tics. He delved into this field so intensely that he soon became an expert in it, and succeeded in contributing to it some new basic concepts involving parsing and knowledge representation.

Professor Martin's greatness as an educator stemmed in part from his ability to influence the thinking of his colleagues. Conversations with him were always stimulating and provocative. A fiercely independent thinker, he was unwilling to accept conventional wisdom until he had dug deeply into the underlying fundamental principles and satisfied himself as to their soundness. Aiding him in this process was his capacity to assemble, sort through, and organize massive amounts of information. As one colleague expressed it: "Bill was able to model anything." He enjoyed tackling ill-defined, hard problems, and he had an extraordinary ability to keep track of myriad things and to mentally manipulate them until they blended together to form a logical, cohesive pattern.

During his all-too-brief career Professor Martin served his profession and the nation by participating in many review panels for government funding agencies. He was also highly sought after as a consultant because of his broad knowledge and great expertise in both artificial intelligence and management.

Each year, in tribute to Professor Martin and in recognition of his many contributions to the department, to the Institute, and to the field of computer science, the William A. Martin prize is awarded to a graduate student for the best Master of Engineering thesis in the area of computer science.