SVU Computer Pioneer Passes Away

Vladimír Slámecka, 78, Professor Emeritus, founder and long time Director of the School of information and computer science, Georgia Institute of Technology, died on June 17, 2006 after a long illness.Slámecka began with one room in the electrical engineering building, 1.5 faculty and five students in a new master's program. Under his direction, the school grew into one of the largest in the Institute. It became the College of Computing in 1990.

The school engaged in basic research and studied how the human mind processes information and the ways a computer can interact with natural language, which grew in importance as computers became a mass technology. The school had international impact under Slámecka. The faculty was influential in the development of the Information Age in the United States, serving on various national and congressional committees and in an advisory capacity to the White House.

Vladimir Slámecka was a native of Brno and originally studied chemical engineering at the University of Technology, Brno and later physical sciences at the University of Sydney and the University of Munich. He obtained his Ph.D. in library science from Columbia University and became head of the Chemistry Library of the University. Subsequently he became head of special studies at Documentation Incorporated, Bethesda, MD - this was the time when I first met him. This was a stepping stone to his brilliant career in Georgia Tech.

Vladimír's death is a great loss to all his friends and SVU, as a whole.

MR

~~~