IN MEMORIAM: ARVIND MITHAL (1947-2024)
Even among rock stars, there are only a handful that have attained the kind of fame and status that permits them to be identified with a mononym - Sting, Prince, Madonna come to mind. This is even rarer for an intellectual Rockstar, the brilliant computer scientist – Arvind – was one of them.
Arvind deliberately dropped his last name to erase the fact that it telegraphed his caste – he was an idealist before he was a mononym. As the Johnson Professor at MIT, he was an extremely distinguished computer scientist, and his list of impressive awards and numerous accolades are too long to recount here. A graduate of IIT-Kanpur, he grew up in Lucknow and got his PhD at the University of Minnesota. His first faculty job was at UC Irvine, after which he turned down a job at MIT to head back to teach at IIT-Kanpur. A year later at the insistence of his mentor Prof. M.V. George, he left to join MIT in 1978.
He was an explorer at heart – and his travel adventures were remarkable - an overland trip from London to Kabul, driving across the Serengeti plain and sabbatical years with his family in Tokyo, Seoul and Barcelona.
He passed away on Monday June 17, 2024, and leaves behind his wife Gita of 50 years, two sons Prabhakar and Divakar, daughters in-law Nisha and Leena and two grandchildren, Maya and Vikram.
A family photo of Arvind, Gita, Prabhakar and Divakar taken just the day before he passed away.
He was a legend already by the time I arrived as a freshman at MIT from New Delhi in 1986. My very protective dad who came to settle me in this new intellectual universe scanned the MIT faculty directory and noted with great pride that Arvind Mithal, Amar Bose and Hargobind Khurana – top-notch scientists of Indian origin were all prominent and distinguished members of the faculty. Strangely, their presence reassured him that I would somehow not only be ok in this unfamiliar terrain but that I would thrive like these incredible minds and make my own mark. As you all know, immigrants find comfort in the oddest ways as they step into their new homes.
Arvind was a pioneer and expert in parallel computing and declarative programming languages, and he led the development of two parallel computing languages, Id and pH. He published the seminal book on the subject “Implicit Parallel Programming in pH” with co-author R.S. Nikhil in 2001. His work on dataflow and parallel computing led to the Monsoon project in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In collaboration with Motorola, his group built 16 dataflow computing machines and developed their software. One of his Monsoon dataflow machines is now in the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
When funding for parallel computing dried up in the 1990s, with his characteristic flexibility and intellectual agility, he pivoted and applied the same techniques to principled design of digital hardware as he explained in a 2012 interview for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
In addition to his research and multiple advisory roles to universities and governments on parallel programming and semiconductor design, Arvind was an important academic leader at the EECS at MIT. When the Schwarzman College of Computing was established at MIT, Arvind helped the Department envision its new reorganization, in which three overlapping subunits (electrical engineering, computer science, and artificial intelligence and decision-making), collaborate to lead the formation of the Institute’s largest academic department. His role, from 2020 until his death, was as faculty head of computer science—a position reflective of his colleagues’ great esteem.
Arvind, Priya, Gita and Gerald Sussman at the MIT CSAIL retreat last summer.
“Arvind was more than a pillar of the EECS community and a titan of computer science; he was a beloved colleague and a treasured friend. Those of us with the remarkable good fortune to work and collaborate with Arvind are devastated by his sudden loss. His kindness and joviality were unwavering; his mentorship was thoughtful and well-considered; his guidance was priceless. We will miss Arvind deeply,” says Asu Ozdaglar, deputy dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and head of EECS.
He was a rebel who had his dream career, achieved peak success, and will be remembered not just for intellectual accomplishments but for his warmth, affection, sense of calmness and humility.
With his remarkable wife, Gita, his life-companion and co-pilot on all his adventures, they built a warm web of deep friendships and served as the social fulcrum for anyone who crossed their orbit with memorable dinners with fine wine served.
My last memory of him was meeting him and Gita last June at the annual retreat of the MIT Computer Sciences and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where I gave a keynote. We had a wonderful conversation about computing and the cosmos and much else. As someone who was proud of my achievements, celebrated them, I will miss him.
Author’s Note:
I am grateful for the personal reflections from Gita Mithal and his two sons Prabhakar and Divakar and contributions from Adam Zewe from the MIT News Office, Jane Halpern, Communications Officer for the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT and Asu Ozdaglar, his collaborator, colleague and his “boss,” head of the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department at MIT.
About the Author
Priyamvada Natarajan is an astrophysicist, and the Joseph S. and Sophia S. Fruton Professor of Astronomy & Physics at Yale, where she also serves as the Chair of the Department of Astronomy. A member of the Indiaspora Board, she was included on this year’s TIME100 list of most influential people in the world for her contributions to science.
