Alan Turing

Born: June 23, 1912
Death: June 7, 1954

Major Academic Events:
He was educated at a top private school. After, he entered University of Cambridge and graduated. Later, he was elected to a fellowship at King's College for his probability theory research. He also studied for a Ph.D. at Princeton University.

Contributions to Computer Science:
He invented the Universal Turing Machine which could solve all computable problems. It used a piece of tape that was written on to store memory, which evolved into a computer's hard drive. This laid the foundation for making the computer. He also created the Turing Test, which determined if a computer was thinking like a human. The test was to see if a computer answering questions could fool a human into thinking it was a human answering the questions. This paved the way for AI.

Sources:
The Turing Test
Alan Turing Biography
Alan Turing's Everlasting Contributions to Computing, AI and Cryptography