Dr. James Mitchell
Board Member, Science Advisory Board Chair, Audit Committee Chair
Dr. Mitchell is a Canadian-born computer scientist who has worked on programming language design and implementation, interactive programming systems, dynamic interpretation and compilation, document preparation systems, user interface design, distributed transactional file systems, and distributed, object-oriented operating systems. He began working with computers in 1962 while a student at the University of Waterloo, where he and three other undergraduates developed a fast compiler for the Fortran programming language known as WATFOR.
Dr. Mitchell has had an extensive career in computer-related endeavors including senior programmer at Berkeley Computer Corporation, Xerox Fellow at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge Computing Laboratory, head of research and development for Acorn Computers (U.K.), vice president of technology & architecture for Java in the JavaSoft Division and then chief technology officer, Java Consumer & Embedded products, vice president and director of Sun Microsystems Laboratories, and principal investigator on the Sun/DARPA HPCS (High Productivity Computing Systems) program. When Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, he became vice president of Photonics, Interconnects, and Packaging in Oracle Labs.
Dr. Mitchell graduated from the University of Waterloo in Canada in Mathematics & Physics, and received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University. He was awarded the J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation from the University of Waterloo, the Fr. Norm Choate, CR, Distinguished Alumni Award from St. Jerome’s University, is author or co-author of over 46 papers, and co-inventor on eight U.S. patents. He has been on the Board of Directors of the Curci Foundation since 2013.