About Professor Ensmenger

Chair, Department of Informatics

Associate Professor, School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
Adjunct Associate Professor, History and Philosophy of Science

Nathan Ensmenger studied engineering and operations research at Princeton University, where he focused on the development of expert systems. He worked for many years in the software industry for clients that include Deloitte & Touche, Ernst & Young, Bank of America, and the National Association of Manufacturers. Prior to joining the faculty of the School of Information and Computing at Indiana University he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Information at the University of Texas - Austin.

Professor Ensmenger's research agenda focuses on the social and cultural history of software and software workers, the history of artificial intelligence, and the organizational dynamics of information technology. His book, The Computer Boys Take Over: Computers, Programmers, and the Politics of Technical Expertise, explores the rise to power of a new group of technical experts in the American corporation. He is one of the co-authors of the third edition of the popular Computer: A History of the Information Machine. He is currently working on a book on the environmental history of computing.

Professor Ensmenger was a two-term editor-in-chief of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing and serves on the editorial board of the journal Information & Culture. He is also a contributing editor to Technology & Culture. He was a Mellon Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellow at the Rob Kling Center for Social Informatics. He is a winner of the Tomash Fellowship in the History of Information Processing and the Maurice Daumas Prize from the International Committee for the History of Technology

For more information, see his curriculum vitae.