Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

Stephen Kleene
     
         Professor Stephen Cole Kleene (1909-01-05 -
        1994-01-26) /steev'n (kohl) klay'nee/ An American
        mathematician whose work at the {University of
        Wisconsin-Madison} helped lay the foundations for modern
        computer science.  Kleene was best known for founding the
        branch of {mathematical logic} known as {recursion theory} and
        for inventing {regular expressions}.  The {Kleene star} and
        {Ascending Kleene Chain} are named after him.
     
        Kleene was born in Hartford, Conneticut, USA.  He received his
        bachelor of arts degree from Amherst College in 1930.  From
        1930 to 1935, he was a graduate student and research assistant
        at {Princeton University} where he received his doctorate in
        mathematics in 1934.  In 1935, he joined UW-Madison
        mathematics department as an instructor.  He became an
        assistant professor in 1937.
     
        From 1939 to 1940, he was a visiting scholar at Princeton's
        {Institute for Advanced Study} where he laid the foundation
        for recursive function theory, an area that would be his
        lifelong research interest.  In 1941 he returned to Amherst as
        an associate professor of mathematics.
     
        During World War II Kleene was a lieutenant commander in the
        United States Navy.  He was an instructor of navigation at the
        U.S. Naval Reserve's Midshipmen's School in New York, and then
        a project director at the Naval Research Laboratory in
        Washington, D.C.
     
        In 1946, he returned to Wisconsin, eventually becoming a full
        professor.  He was chair of mathematics, and computer sciences
        in 1962 and 1963 and dean of the College of Letters and
        Science from 1969 to 1974.  In 1964 he was named the Cyrus
        C. MacDuffee professor of mathematics.
     
        An avid mountain climber, Kleene had a strong interest in
        nature and the environment and was active in many conservation
        causes.  He led several professional organisations, serving as
        president of the {Association of Symbolic Logic} from 1956 to
        1958.  In 1961, he served as president of the International
        Union of the History and the Philosophy of Science.
     
        Kleene pronounced his last name /klay'nee/.  /klee'nee/ and
        /kleen/ are extremely common mispronunciations.  His first
        name is /steev'n/, not /stef'n/.  His son, Ken Kleene
        , wrote: "As far as I am aware this
        pronunciation is incorrect in all known languages.  I believe
        that this novel pronunciation was invented by my father."
     
        {(gopher://gopher.adp.wisc.edu/00/.data/.news-rel/.9401/.940126a)}.
     
        (1999-03-03)