Burton Smith

Burton J. Smith
Smith at Supercomputing in 2007
Born	March 21, 1941 (1941-03-21) (age 76) North Carolina, USA
Nationality	American
Occupation	Technical Fellow at Microsoft

Burton J. Smith (born March 21, 1941) is an American computer architect. He is a Technical Fellow at Microsoft.

Smith graduated from the Cate School in Carpinteria, California in 1958, where he established himself as a gifted math and science student. Taking a special interest in chemistry, he placed third in a statewide competition as a senior. Smith then went on to Pomona College in Claremont, California to study physics. He transferred out of Pomona to the University of New Mexico following his freshmen year, but was still unhappy with his education and subsequently dropped out of college entirely to join the Navy. Smith spent four years with the military before returning to the University of New Mexico, changing his studies from physics to Electrical engineering, graduating summa cum laude with a B.S.E.E. degree in 1967. Smith turned down acceptances from UC Berkeley and Stanford to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue his Doctorate, citing a financial aid package as the reasoning behind his decision. Part of this aid package was a work-study asking Smith to help build a database for the university's computer science department, one of Smith's first and formative experiences with computers. He earned an Sc.D. from MIT in 1972.