Ken Kennedy (August 12, 1945 – February 7, 2007) was an American computer scientist and professor at Rice University.

[1][2] Kennedy directed the construction of several substantial software systems for programming parallel computers, including an automatic vectorizer for Fortran 77, an integrated scientific programming environment, compilers for Fortran 90 and High Performance Fortran, and a compilation system for domain languages based on the numerical computing environment MATLAB.

From 1997 to 1999, he served as co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC).

[3] At the time of his death he was the John and Ann Doerr University Professor in the department of Computer Science at Rice and the Director of the Center for High Performance Software Research (HiPerSoft).

[2] Kennedy's last publication was The rise and fall of High Performance Fortran: an historical object lesson,[4] in which Kennedy discussed the general failure of the High Performance Fortran language which he had championed.