William Allan Wulf (December 8, 1939 – March 10, 2023) was an American computer scientist notable for his work in programming languages and compilers.
In 1970, while at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), he designed the BLISS programming language and developed an optimizing compiler for it.
From 1971 to 1975, as part of CMUs C.mmp project, he worked on an operating system (OS) microkernel named Hydra which is capability-based, object-oriented, and designed to support a wide range of possible OSs to run on it.
With his wife Anita K. Jones, Wulf was a founder and vice president of Tartan Laboratories, a compiler technology company, in 1981.
[7][8][9][10] After widespread challenges from the faculty, student body, alumni, and the national academic community; and in the face of a direct threat from the Governor of Virginia that he would replace the entire board if they did not resolve the conflict, Sullivan was unanimously rehired some two weeks later.