CHARLES SIMONYI, software engineer, computer scientist, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton.
He is chairman, CTO and founder of Intentional Software Corporation. The company accelerates innovation by integrating business domain experts into the software production process.
Simonyi was at Microsoft Corporation from 1981 to 2002, where he was Director of Application Development, Chief Architect, and Distinguished Engineer. While at Microsoft, Simonyi hired and managed teams that developed Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and other best selling software applications. Simonyi worked at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from 1972-1980 where he created the first WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) text editor called Bravo.
Born in Budapest, Hungary, Simonyi earned his B.S. in engineering mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a doctorate in computer science from Stanford University. He received a honorary doctorate from the University of Pecs in Hungary, in 2001. Simonyi has been a member of the National Academy of Engineering since 1997, elected for his contributions to "widely used productivity software.” He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2008, and a Correspondent Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Simonyi has been serving on the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 1998 and elected to be the Chairman of the Board starting in 2008. He has endowed a chair for the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University and a chair for Theoretical Physics at the Institute for Advanced Study, among numerous other educational and charitable contributions through the Charles and Lisa Simonyi Foundation for Arts and Sciences.
Simonyi is an avid collector of modern art, enjoys classical music and is an experienced pilot. He participated in the Soyuz TMA-10 mission in 2007 and the Soyuz TMA-14 mission in 2009 to the International Space Station.