Gerald Jay Sussman is a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His MIT page lists him as the Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering and describes his work teaching advanced courses in symbolic programming and in classical mechanics, along with decades of research spanning computer science and physics.
In 1975, together with Guy Lewis Steele Jr., Sussman created Scheme. Their MIT AI Memo No. 349, “SCHEME: An Interpreter for Extended Lambda Calculus” (December 1975), introduced a small LISP-like language built on the lambda calculus, a project that helped establish lexical scoping and other ideas in the LISP family.
Sussman is also co-author, with Harold Abelson and Julie Sussman, of “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” (SICP), the MIT textbook that taught a generation of students to think about programs in terms of abstraction and composition. His MIT page lists the book among his major publications, noting it has been translated into multiple languages and adapted to a JavaScript edition in 2022.
Through Scheme and SICP, Sussman shaped both a widely studied programming language and the way introductory computer science was taught. His page also records a long record of advising, including dozens of doctoral students, reflecting his lasting influence on the field.