Recipients are graduates of the University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics from business, education, or government.
He worked as a systems engineer for IBM in Canada, and then joined the faculty of the University of Waterloo in 1959.
A team of his students developed the WATFOR series of compilers starting in 1965.
He formed a computer science research group, known as the "Computer Systems Group," to distribute and maintain the software, and was also responsible for several spin-off organizations, including Watcom in 1981.
[4] In 2001 his papers formed the start of the J. Wesley Graham History of Computer Science Research Collection at the University of Waterloo library.