Hal Abelson | Academic Influence

Why Is Hal Abelson Influential?

By Erik J. Larson, PhD

Areas of Specialization: Computer Programming, Amorphous Computing
Hal Abelson is the founding director of Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation and a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned a B.A. from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He directed the first use of Logo, a programming language for the Apple II, and worked with Gerald Sussman to develop MIT’s foundational computer science textbook, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, which was based on the premise that coding languages were merely a structured means of communicating with computers. Among the hacker community, this text is referred to as the “Wizard Book”.

Abelson has also been instrumental in the development of App Inventor, a program that makes app development easy and accessible for beginners. Once the program became open source, Abelson became codirector for the MIT Center for Mobile Learning, where they continue to develop the App Inventor program.

He has been a fierce proponent for open source and open access, starting and supporting ongoing initiatives such as the Free Software Foundation and MIT OpenCourseWare. These programs are intended to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and information with the world, breaking down barriers to access faced by students and scholars.

Academic Website

Featured in Top Influential Computer Scientists Today

According to Wikipedia, Harold "Hal" Abelson is the Class of 1922 Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers , and a founding director of both Creative Commons and the Free Software Foundation.

Hal Abelson's Published Works

Number of citations in a given year to any of this author's works

Total number of citations to an author for the works they published in a given year. This highlights publication of the most important work(s) by the author

Published Papers

Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (1544)
Amorphous computing (573)
Revised5 Report on the Algorithmic Language Scheme (567)
Turtle geometry : the computer as a medium for exploring mathematics (552)
Revised4 report on the algorithmic language scheme (425)
Information accountability (422)
Boxer: a reconstructible computational medium (234)
Revised 5 Report on the Algorithmic Language (230)
Fostering Learning in the Networked World: The Cyberlearning Opportunity and Challenge. A 21st Century Agenda for the National Science Foundation (224)
Revised5 report on the algorithmic language scheme (215)
The risks of key recovery, key escrow, and trusted third-party encryption (171)
The Creation of OpenCourseWare at MIT (145)
Putting knowledge to use : facilitating the diffusion of knowledge and the implementation of planned change (143)
Putting Knowledge to Use. (131)
Intelligence in scientific computing (117)
Lower bounds on information transfer in distributed computations (117)
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Second Edition (115)
App Inventor - Create Your Own Android Apps (106)
Keys under doormats: mandating insecurity by requiring government access to all data and communications (105)
Information transfer and area-time tradeoffs for VLSI multiplication (77)
Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion (76)
Transparent Accountable Data Mining: New Strategies for Privacy Protection (75)
ccREL : The Creative Commons Rights Expression Language (69)
Democratizing Computing with App Inventor (62)
From computational thinking to computational action (60)
10. CC REL: The Creative Commons Rights Expression Language (53)
Skill progression in MIT app inventor (46)
Access Control is an Inadequate Framework for Privacy Protection (46)
Teaching CS principles with app inventor (44)
The Revised Revised Report on Scheme or An Uncommon Lisp (43)
No technical understanding required: helping users make informed choices about access to their personal data (41)
Architects of the Information Society: 35 Years of the Laboratory for Computer Science at Mit (39)
Architects of the Information Society: Thirty-Five Years of the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT (30)
Turtle Geometry (29)
Measuring the usability and capability of App inventor to create mobile Applications (28)
Corrigendum: Towards a Theory of Local and Global in Computation (27)
The Bifurcation Interpreter: A Step Towards the Automatic Analysis of Dynamical Systems (26)
The Dynamicist''s Workbench: I ---Automatic Preparation of Numerical Experiments (25)
Structure and interpretation of computer programs / Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman (23)
Lower Bounds on Information Transfer in Distributed Computations (22)
A Note on Time-Space Tradeoffs for Computing Continuous Functions (21)
Can apps play by the COPPA Rules? (18)
Velocity Space and the Geometry of Planetary Orbits. Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 320. (14)
Factors affecting the adoption of faculty-developed academic software: A study of five iCampus projects (13)
Introduction to Computational Thinking Education (13)
The Supercomputer Toolkit and its applications (12)
LISP: a language for stratified design (12)
Detecting Creative Commons License Violations on Images on the World Wide Web (12)
MIT's Strategy for Educational Technology Innovation, 1999–2003 (11)
University Teaching as E-Business? Research and Policy Agendas (11)
From computational thinking to computational values (10)
App Inventor 2 (9)
The Climate Collaboratorium: Project Overview (9)
Teaching CS0 with mobile apps using App Inventor for Android (8)
The first-course conundrum (8)
The Supercomputer Toolkit and its applications (8)
Compositional complexity of Boolean functions (7)
Location is Everything Balancing Innovation , Convenience , and Privacy in Location-based Technologies Submitted (7)
Mobile phone apps in CS0 using App Inventor for Android: pre-conference workshop (7)
The Supercomputer Toolkit: A General Framework for Special- purpose Computing (6)
The State of the Field in Computational Thinking Assessment (6)
Live Programming of Mobile Apps in App Inventor (6)
The LISP experience (5)
Behavioral-pattern exploration and development of an instructional tool for young children to learn AI (5)
Computational Geometry of Linear Threshold Functions (5)
Lessons learned from teaching App Inventor (4)
LOWER BOUNDS ON INFORMATIONTRANSFER IN DISTRIBUTED COMPUTATIONS (4)
Computational Thinking Education (3)
Teacher's Guide for Computational Models of Animal Behavior: A Computer-Based Curriculum Unit to Accompany the Elementary Science Study Guide "Behavior of Mealworms." Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 432. (3)
Workshop — Google App Inventor for Android: Creating mobile applications as a first computing experience (3)
Student Science Training Program in Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science. Final Report to the National Science Foundation. Artificial Intelligence Memo No. 393. (3)
Computation in the Undergraduate Curriculum (3)
Symbolic computing in engineering design (3)
Teaching with app inventor for android (abstract only) (3)
Curriculum activities to foster primary school students’ computational practices in block-based programming environments (3)
The improvement of intelligence testing (2)
Instructor's Manual to Accompany Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (2)
A DEEP LEARNING PRACTICUM: CONCEPTS AND PRACTICES FOR TEACHING ACTIONABLE MACHINE LEARNING AT THE TERTIARY EDUCATION LEVEL (2)
A Snapshot of Steps towards Change through Educational Technology (2)
Bugs in our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning (2)
The Role of Educational Research in a Democracy (2)
6.01 Introduction to Electrical Engineering and Computer Science I, Fall 2009 (1)
Teacher's Guide for Computational Models of Animal Behavior (1)
Review of The Methodology of Educational Research. (1)
Computer exercises to accompany Structure and interpretation of computer programs : version for IBM PC compatible machines (1)
Analysis of Itemized Judgments Concerning the Allocation to Pre-Teaching and In-Teaching Training of Teaching Competencies, Topics in Educational Psychology, and Psychoeducational Proposals. (1)
Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier (1)
Open Sharing at MIT (1)
Open Access versus "Open Viewing" for a Web of Science: The Neurocommons Example (1)
Other devices for investigating personality. (1)
AmorphousAmorphous computing ComputingComputing amorphous (1)
From Computational Thinking to Computational Action: Understanding Changes in Computational Identity through App Inventor and the Internet of Things (1)
Programming Technology for Molecular-Scale Computing (0)
Is It Possible for Young Students to Learn the AI-STEAM Application with Experiential Learning? (0)
Icampus Science Faculty Member) from Mit. Former Microsoft Jsc Members Include (0)
A General Task-Oriented Teacher Competencies Checklist: Item Importance and Placement in Training as Judged by Prospective and Present Teachers. (0)
2014 Twelfth Annual International Conference on Privacy, Security and Trust, Toronto, ON, Canada, July 23-24, 2014 (0)
Supercomputer toolkit: A general framework for special purpose computing. Memorandum report (0)
6.805J / 6.806 / STS.085 Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier, Spring 2002 (0)
LOGO Progress Report 1973-1975. Artificial Intelligence Memo Number 356. Revised. (0)
Amorphous Computing 1 (0)
Method of Vocational Guidance by Gertrude Forrester (Revised and Enlarged). D. C. Heath and Co., 463 pp. $4.25 (0)
The art of educational research : its problems and precedures (0)
Logo graphics as a mathematical environment (0)
SELF PERCEIVED MASTERY OF CURRICULUM CONTENT AND OF METHODS ON THE PART OF BEGINNING ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS AND PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS AT VARIOUS STAGES OF PREPARATION. (0)
Building Abstractions with Procedures (0)
OTHERBOOKS RECEIVED All books received are listed here. Some ofthem will be reviewed at a later date. Reliability Theory and ModelsmStochastic Failure Models, Optimal Maintenance Policies, Life Testing, and (0)
Modularity, Objects, and State (0)
Computing with Register Machines (0)
Chapter VII: Other Devices for Investigating Personality (0)
Dazzle dart: reflections on computer games (0)
The Methodology of Educational Research. (0)
Open Access at MITand Beyond:A White Paper of theMIT Ad Hoc Task Forceon Open Access toMIT’s Research (0)
Supercomputer Toolkit and its applications. Memorandum report (0)
List of Exercises (0)
The Pillars of MIT: Innovation, Radical Meritocracy, and Open Knowledge (0)
SIGCUE (Paper Session) (0)
Book Reviews : Handbook of Research on Teaching by N. L. Gage (editor.) Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1963. Pp. v + 1218 (0)
Keeping the Net Stupid (0)
Educational programs in computer science and law: panel (0)
AMORPHOUS For coherent behavior from vast numbers of unreliable microsensors , actuators , and communication devices interconnected in unknown ways , apply the lessons of cellular cooperation in biological organisms (0)
Amorphous and Cellular Computing (0)
Building Abstractions with Data (0)

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Computer Science