$eymour Ginsburg
By: Kateris $cott
Submitted To: Mr. Timothy Holston
Personal Life
 Sy Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1927
 He and his wife Dorothy Usiskin were big supporters of the
series of annual All & Everything Conferences.
 He has drawn attention to the spiritual contribution of a
modern-day Indian guru known as Sri Madhava Ashish.
 He died on December 5, 2004. R.I.P
Education
 Seymour Ginsburg received his B.S. from City College of New
York in 1948
 He earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of
Michigan in 1952
 Ginsburg's professional career began in 1951 when he accepted a
position as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Miami in Florida. He turned his attention completely towards
Computer Science in 1955, when he moved to California to work
for the Northrop Corporation.
 At System Development Corporation Ginsburg first focused on
the theory of abstract machines. He designed and led a research
project devoted to formal language theory and the foundations of
Computer Science.
Earlier Work
 Ginsburg's early work was based on automata theory. In 1958, he proved that
"don't-care" circuit minimization does not necessarily give way to a minimal
result.
 His work in automata theory led the switching theory community into a more
thoughtful way. This work ended with the publication of a book on the
mathematics of machines in 1962.
 He studied context-free grammars and published a well-known comprehensive
overview of context-free languages in 1966.
 He was the first to observe the connection between context free languages and
"ALGOL-like" languages. This brought the field of formal language theory to
stand on programming language research. They remain standard tools for many
computer scientists working in the areas of formal languages and automata.
Many of his papers at this time were co-authored with other prominent formal
language researchers, including Sheila Greibach, and Michael A. Harrison, two
other computer scientist.
Contribution to Computer Science
 Seymour Ginsburg was a pioneer of automata theory, formal
language theory, database theory, and computer science, in
general. His work was influential in distinguishing theoretical
Computer Science from the disciplines of Mathematics and
Electrical Engineering.
 During his career, Ginsburg published over 100 papers and
three books on various topics in theoretical Computer
Science.