Stephen Wolfram

Stephen Wolfram is a British-American computer scientist, physicist, and businessman. He is known for his computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics work. In 2012, he was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science. As a businessman, he is the founder and CEO of the software company Wolfram Research where he works as chief designer of Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine.

Stephen Wolfram was born in London in 1959 to Hugo and Sybil Wolfram, both German Jewish refugees to the United Kingdom. His maternal grandmother was British psychoanalyst Kate Friedlander. Wolfram's father, Hugo Wolfram, was a textile manufacturer and was managing director of the Lurex Company—makers of the fabric Lurex. Wolfram's mother, Sybil Wolfram, was a Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Lady Margaret Hall at the University of Oxford from 1964 to 1993.

Stephen Wolfram is married to a mathematician. They have four children together. Wolfram was educated at Eton College but left prematurely in 1976. As a young child, Wolfram had difficulties learning arithmetic. He entered St. John's College, Oxford, at age 17 and left in 1978 without graduating to attend the California Institute of Technology the following year, where he received a Ph.D. in particle physics in 1980. 

Wolfram's thesis committee was composed of Richard Feynman, Peter Goldreich, Frank J. Sciulli, and Steven Frautschi, chaired by Richard D. Field. Wolfram, at the age of 15, began research in applied quantum field theory and particle physics and published scientific papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Nuclear Physics B, Australian Journal of Physics, Nuovo Cimento, and Physical Review D.

Working independently, Wolfram published a widely cited paper on heavy quark production at age 18 and nine other papers. Wolfram's work with Geoffrey C. Fox on the theory of strong interaction is still used in experimental particle physics. Following his Ph.D., Wolfram joined the faculty at Caltech and became the youngest recipient[citation needed] of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981, at age 21.