Harold Abelson

Harold Abelson is the Class of 1922 Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, where his work joins computing education, open knowledge, and public-interest technology. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs grew from the introductory course he developed with Gerald Jay Sussman; Julie Sussman contributed to the original book. Often called SICP, the text treats a programming language as a medium for expressing ideas about methodology and builds mental models of computational processes. Its first two editions used Scheme. The 2022 JavaScript edition, created with Gerald Sussman, Martin Henz, Tobias Wrigstad, and Julie Sussman, adapts those ideas for another language. Abelson also directed the first Apple implementation of Logo, helped foster MIT OpenCourseWare and DSpace, and served as a founding director of Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the Free Software Foundation. His App Inventor project extends the same educational commitment by helping learners create mobile applications without prior programming experience.