DFBCS is an abbreviation for Distinguished Fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

 of the British Computer Society

British Computer Society

The British Computer Society, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in Information Technology in the United Kingdom and internationally...

 (BCS).

From time to time, BCS considers the award of a Distinguished Fellowship to members of the computing profession who have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of computing.

The Distinguished Fellowship of BCS is awarded under bylaw

Bylaw

By-law can refer to a law of local or limited application passed under the authority of a higher law specifying what things may be regulated by the by-law...

 7 of the BCS's Royal Charter

Royal Charter

A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...

. Trustee Board Regulation 1.2 specifies that the award may be made even if the individual in question is not already a member of BCS and may not be eligible for any other class of membership.

The award was first approved in 1969 and the first election was made in 1971 to Edsger W. Dijkstra. The nominations committee is responsible for identifying and proposing suitable candidates. The actual election of such members of the profession is made by a resolution of the trustee board on the recommendation of the president.

Criteria

Any candidate for Distinguished Fellowship should be considered against the following criteria:-

• The contribution to computing should be seen in terms of major importance to the overall development of computing, with substantial personal recognition through peer review over a substantial and sustained career. There is no restriction on nomination on the grounds of nationality or of existing membership of BCS and nominations from business, industrial, research or academic backgrounds are equally acceptable and work of either a practical or theoretical nature may be equally valid.

• At any time, both the work and the stature of the individual nominated should be commensurate with the standards set by previous recipients although it is not expected that there will be more than one Distinguished Fellow elected every two years.

To be elected, the nomination must be on the Trustee Board Agenda, and at least 3/4 of those present must resolve in favour.

Roll of Distinguished Fellows

Name	Elected
Edsger W. Dijkstra, Ph.D.	1971
Christopher Strachey Christopher Strachey Christopher Strachey was a British computer scientist. He was one of the founders of denotational semantics, and a pioneer in programming language design...	1971
Rear Admiral Grace M. Hopper, Ph.D. Grace Hopper Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language...	1973
Sir Maurice Wilkes, Ph.D., FRS, FREng	1973
Andrei P. Ershov Andrey Ershov Academician Andrey Petrovych Ershov was a Soviet computer scientist, notable as a pioneer in systems programming and programming language research. He was responsible for the languages ALPHA and Rapira, AIST-0 the first Soviet time-sharing system, electronic publishing system RUBIN, and MRAMOR, a...	1974
Tom Kilburn, Ph.D., CBE, FRS Tom Kilburn Tom Kilburn CBE, FRS was an English engineer. With Freddie Williams he worked on the Williams Tube and the world's first stored-program computer, the Small-Scale Experimental Machine , while working at the University of Manchester.-Computer engineering:Kilburn was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire and...	1974
James H. Wilkinson James H. Wilkinson James Hardy Wilkinson was a prominent figure in the field of numerical analysis, a field at the boundary of applied mathematics and computer science particularly useful to physics and engineering.-Early life:...	1974
Isaac L. Auerbach	1975
Donald W. Davies, CBE, FRS	1975
Bertram Vivian Bowden, Ph.D., Baron Bowden	1976
Charles W. Bachman	1977
Sir C. Anthony R. Hoare, FRS, FREng C. A. R. Hoare Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare , commonly known as Tony Hoare or C. A. R. Hoare, is a British computer scientist best known for the development of Quicksort, one of the world's most widely used sorting algorithms...	1978
Gene M. Amdahl, Ph.D. Gene Amdahl Gene Myron Amdahl is a Norwegian-American computer architect and high-tech entrepreneur, chiefly known for his work on mainframe computers at IBM and later his own companies, especially Amdahl Corporation...	1979
Donald E. Knuth, Ph.D. Donald Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.He is the author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms...	1980
Iann M. Barron Iann Barron Iann Barron is a British computer engineer and entrepreneur, born in June 1936.During vacation work in 1956-7 at Elliott Brothers while still at Cambridge he designed the Elliot 803...	1986
A. J. Robin E. Milner, FRS Robin Milner Arthur John Robin Gorell Milner FRS FRSE was a prominent British computer scientist.-Life, education and career:...	1988
Wladyslaw M. Turski	1989
Robb Wilmot	1990
Frederick P. Brooks, Ph.D. Fred Brooks Frederick Phillips Brooks, Jr. is a software engineer and computer scientist, best known for managing the development of IBM's System/360 family of computers and the OS/360 software support package, then later writing candidly about the process in his seminal book The Mythical Man-Month...	1994
William H. Gates, III, KBE Bill Gates William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...	1994
Timothy J. Berners-Lee, Dr.Sc., OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee, , also known as "TimBL", is a British computer scientist, MIT professor and the inventor of the World Wide Web...	1996
David E. Deutsch, DPhil, FRS David Deutsch David Elieser Deutsch, FRS is an Israeli-British physicist at the University of Oxford. He is a non-stipendiary Visiting Professor in the Department of Atomic and Laser Physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation in the Clarendon Laboratory of the University of Oxford...	1998
Peter T. Kirstein, Ph.D., CBE Peter T. Kirstein Peter Thomas Kirstein is a British computer scientist, best known for playing a significant role in the creation of the Internet.Born in Germany but brought up in England, he received a B.A. from Cambridge University in 1954, an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University ...	2004
Scott McNealy Scott McNealy Scott McNealy is an American business executive. He co-founded computer technology company Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Bill Joy, and Andy Bechtolsheim.-Biography:...	2007

External links

• Fellowship of the British Computer Society