Dr. Andrew J Singer
Business and Technology Advisor
March 07, 1943 - November 08, 2012
EcoGuinea has lost a much-appreciated mentor and advisor
Andrew J. Singer died in his home in Mill Valley of natural causes, he was 69 years old.
Dr. Singer held a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts and was a lifelong computer scientist, innovator and inventor.
When not working in computing, Singer developed a love of glassblowing and poetry and was happiest debating politics with his friends and family. He was known to his friends and family to have an affection for jokes and puns and was a devoted film buff.
In his most recent venture Andrew joined Edison Labs to lead its R&D activities and had more than 30 years experience inventing hardware and software technologies and products. His research career began at NYU Medical Center where he created the first medical record text search engine. He earned a PhD in CS from UMass in 1979, by showing how the design of interactive systems could be improved using studies of cognitive psychology and by demonstrating the first abstract mathematical formalism to completely describe such systems.
Dr. Singer was an executive and technologist best known for producing best-selling software and hardware products on the Macintosh. Dr. Singer Founded Think Technologies in 1982 and served as its Vice President of Product Development, he created market-leading Macintosh software development tools, including MacPascal, Think C (LightspeedC) and Think Pascal. Following the sale of Think to Symantec, he joined Radius in 1989 as Vice President of Engineering. During that period, Dr. Singer grew the Radius engineering organization from 15 to 55, and delivered more than 30 distinct products, most notably the Pivot landscape/portrait display. In 1992, he became the first member of the technical staff at Interval Research, a Paul Allen company, and was influential in shaping a unique research community throughout its nine-year lifespan. Focused on future wireless technology, his first project created new social media, and wearable devices. Subsequent research focused on the future of computer-mediated interpersonal communication. Then, as co-leader of Interval’s foundations of computing project, he helped invent new mathematics and programming tools for computing. After Interval, Dr. Singer also provided investment due diligence and assistance to Vulcan Ventures, Interval’s parent company, including acting as both Chief Technology Officer and Chief Executive Officer of a 25-person network hardware startup. From 1998 to early 2001, he served as project leader of Interval’s reconfigurable computing project and Chief Executive Officer of Bitsqueeze, Inc., a startup created to commercialize large-scale reconfigurable computing. Upon his departure from Bitsqueeze he served as Director of Rapport Incorporated where he was CTO and CEO and worked creating chips and development tools for reconfigurable computing.
In addition to his work as an entrepreneur he served on the National Advisory Board of Mystic Seaport Museum. He co-authored the programming texts Elementary Basic and Elementary Pascal, and was the inventor on three issued US patents. Dr. Singer spent fifteen years as an individual contributor and consultant on a wide range of hardware and software projects, including the first full text searchable database for medical records and the first interactive environment for speech synthesis tools. His Ph.D. work helped define the 7-layer ISO model that modern networks are based upon.
Andrew J. Singer died in his home in Mill Valley of natural causes, he was 69 years old.
Dr. Singer held a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts and was a lifelong computer scientist, innovator and inventor.
When not working in computing, Singer developed a love of glassblowing and poetry and was happiest debating politics with his friends and family. He was known to his friends and family to have an affection for jokes and puns and was a devoted film buff.
In his most recent venture Andrew joined Edison Labs to lead its R&D activities and had more than 30 years experience inventing hardware and software technologies and products. His research career began at NYU Medical Center where he created the first medical record text search engine. He earned a PhD in CS from UMass in 1979, by showing how the design of interactive systems could be improved using studies of cognitive psychology and by demonstrating the first abstract mathematical formalism to completely describe such systems.
Dr. Singer was an executive and technologist best known for producing best-selling software and hardware products on the Macintosh. Dr. Singer Founded Think Technologies in 1982 and served as its Vice President of Product Development, he created market-leading Macintosh software development tools, including MacPascal, Think C (LightspeedC) and Think Pascal. Following the sale of Think to Symantec, he joined Radius in 1989 as Vice President of Engineering. During that period, Dr. Singer grew the Radius engineering organization from 15 to 55, and delivered more than 30 distinct products, most notably the Pivot landscape/portrait display. In 1992, he became the first member of the technical staff at Interval Research, a Paul Allen company, and was influential in shaping a unique research community throughout its nine-year lifespan. Focused on future wireless technology, his first project created new social media, and wearable devices. Subsequent research focused on the future of computer-mediated interpersonal communication. Then, as co-leader of Interval’s foundations of computing project, he helped invent new mathematics and programming tools for computing. After Interval, Dr. Singer also provided investment due diligence and assistance to Vulcan Ventures, Interval’s parent company, including acting as both Chief Technology Officer and Chief Executive Officer of a 25-person network hardware startup. From 1998 to early 2001, he served as project leader of Interval’s reconfigurable computing project and Chief Executive Officer of Bitsqueeze, Inc., a startup created to commercialize large-scale reconfigurable computing. Upon his departure from Bitsqueeze he served as Director of Rapport Incorporated where he was CTO and CEO and worked creating chips and development tools for reconfigurable computing.
In addition to his work as an entrepreneur he served on the National Advisory Board of Mystic Seaport Museum. He co-authored the programming texts Elementary Basic and Elementary Pascal, and was the inventor on three issued US patents. Dr. Singer spent fifteen years as an individual contributor and consultant on a wide range of hardware and software projects, including the first full text searchable database for medical records and the first interactive environment for speech synthesis tools. His Ph.D. work helped define the 7-layer ISO model that modern networks are based upon.