Computer Science

The timeline below is a constantly-evolving record of some of the department's historical highlights. Those with suggestions and additions for the list are asked to e-mail us.

1950: The first graduate course on computing is taught by Kelly Gotlieb, entitled "The Logical Basis of Digital Computing Machines".

1952: The Computation Centre is formed.

1952: FERUT, the first electronic computer in Canada, is shipped from Manchester, England to U of T in April. Also called the Ferranti, It was among the first commercially available computers (second to the UNIVAC). Several Canadian universities made use of FERUT’s computational abilities; its calculations were also instrumental in political and economic decisions, including, in 1956, the debate between Ontario Hydro and New York State regarding the placement of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1952: The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) holds its national conference at the UofT; this is the only time it did so outside of the United States.

1953: A working model of UTEC (University of Toronto Electronic Computer), a prototype computer, is completed. (The development of UTEC began in 1951.)

1958: The IBM 650 is acquired by the University of Toronto.

1958 - 1962: Pat Hume hosts Two for Physics on CBC, which becomes The Nature of Things in 1960.

1962: The Computation Centre becomes the Institute for Computer Science (ICS); this was an initial step toward forming a unique, independent Computer Science department at UofT.

1962: The IBM 7090 is acquired; it is Canada’s most powerful computer.

1964: On July 1, the Department of Computer Science is officially formed, taking over the teaching and research responsibilities of the ICS. At the time, it was the only Computer Science doctorate program in Canada, and consisted of 6 faculty members (3 of whom were full time) and 4 graduate students. 

1964 - 1967: Kelly Gotlieb is Chair of DCS.

1968 - 1975: Tom Hull is Chair of DCS.

1969: The Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) is formed to provide a link between DCS and ECE (Electrical & Computer Engineering).

1971: An undergraduate program in Computer Science is established.

1975 - 1980: Pat Hume is Chair of DCS.

1980 - 1985: Allan Borodin is Chair of DCS.

1981: DCS becomes an administrative unit in the Faculty of Arts and Science at UofT.

1982: Professor Steve Cook is honored with the Turing Award for formalizing the notion of NP-completeness in a famous 1971 paper (which included a proof of what is now known universally as “Cook’s theorem”); the University of Toronto is the only Canadian university to have a Turing winner on its faculty.

1985 - 1990: Derek Corneil is Chair of DCS.

1989: The Turing programming language, developed as a teaching language by Ric Holt and Jim Cordy in 1983, is awarded the Information Technology Innovation Award by CIPS (Canadian Information Processing Society). Turing is used at universities and school boards across Canada, the U.S., Europe and Australia.

1990 - 1992: Ken Sevcik is Chair of DCS.

1992 - 1993: Allan Borodin is Acting Chair of DCS.

1993 - 1998: Wayne Enright is Chair of DCS.

1995: Kelly Gotlieb is named a Member of the Order of Canada for “leading Canadians into the modern age of computing” (the Order of Canada is the greatest award a Canadian can receive and recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation).

1998 - 2004: Eugene Fiume is Chair of DCS.

2002: ACM holds its Awards Banquet at the UofT; this is the first time the banquet was held outside of the United States, and was the last time it would be held at a university.

1998: The DCS Women in Computer Science group is established.

2003: Pat Hume is named a Member of the Order of Canada for “pioneering the development of software for the first electronic computer in Canada” (the Order of Canada is the greatest award a Canadian can receive and recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to the community and service to the nation).

2004: Craig Boutilier becomes Chair of DCS.

2005: Karan Singh is the R&D Director for the Oscar-winning animated short film, Ryan (Karan has been involved in winning 3 Oscars in total).

2006: The CiteSeer.Continuity database names Geoff Hinton as one of the 35 most-cited computer scientists in the world.

2007: DCS hosts its first Research in Action showcase, an annual event where graduate students and faculty show off their research to industry representatives.

2008: The Dynamic Graphics Project (DGP) research group celebrates its 40-year anniversary, welcoming back prominent alumni speakers, such as Pixar’s Technical Director, Bill Reeves.

2008 - 2009: Sven Dickinson is Acting Chair of DCS. 

DCS also houses a small collection of historical objects and documents from the department's past. The collection is found in the Bahen Centre, Room 5250, and includes the MCM/70, which was created in Canada and is considered the world's first personal computer - a very limited number of these are in existence today.

Pat Hume (right) and Don Ivey
on The Nature of Things