The Computer Science Department at Stanford University in Stanford, California, is a leading school for computer science. It was founded in 1965 and has consistently been ranked as one of the top computer science programs in the world. Its location in Silicon Valley makes it unique among computer science programs. History The Stanford University Computer Science Department was founded in 1965 by George Forsythe. Academics The CS department grants B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees. Gates Computer Science Building The Gates Computer Science Building, or "Gates Building" houses the Computer Science Department as well as the Computer Systems Laboratory. It also houses 550 faculty, staff and students. The building was named after Bill Gates, who donated $6 million of its total cost of $38 million. It was constructed over two years and completed in 1996. People Alumni Brian Acton, co-founder of WhatsApp Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google Orkut Büyükkökten, founder of Orkut Will Harvey, entrepreneur Reed Hastings, Netflix founder Jawed Karim, co-founder of YouTube Larry Page, co-founder of Google Blake Ross, co-creator of Mozilla Firefox Mike Schroepfer, CTO of Facebook David E. Shaw, hedge fund manager, D. E. Shaw & Co. Charles Simonyi, inventor of Microsoft Word, former chief architect at Microsoft Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram Faculty Vinton Cerf, former faculty, Turing award-winning computer scientist Douglas Engelbart, Turing award-winning computer scientist, inventor of the computer mouse, former researcher, inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame Edward Feigenbaum, Turing award-winning computer scientist, father of expert system, coinventor of Dendral Robert Floyd, former faculty, Turing award-winning computer scientist Gene Golub, former faculty, a leading authority in numerical matrix analysis, inventor of the algorithm for Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) Leonidas J. Guibas, Allan Newell award-winning pioneer in data structures and geometric algorithms John L. Hennessy, pioneer in RISC, President of Stanford Sir Antony Hoare, former faculty, Turing award-winning computer scientist John Hopcroft, former faculty, Turing award-winning computer scientist Alan Kay, former faculty, Turing award-winning computer scientist John Koza, pioneer in genetic programming Daphne Koller, professor in CS, co-founder of Coursera Donald Knuth, professor emeritus, computer science pioneer, creator of TeX, author of The Art of Computer Programming, Turing award winner Barbara Liskov, the first woman earning a Ph.D in CS (from Stanford), Turing award-winning computer scientist Edward McCluskey, professor in EE, IEEE John von Neumann Medal winner John McCarthy, responsible for the coining of the term Artificial Intelligence, and inventor of the Lisp