John H. Reif is A. Hollis Edens Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Duke University. He received a B.S. (magna cum laude) from Tufts University in 1973 and a M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1975 and 1977. He developed efficient randomized and parallel algorithms for a wide variety of graph, geometric, numeric, algebraic, and logical problems. He also has done applied research in parallel architectures, data compression, robotics, and optical computing.

In the area of robotics, he gave the first hardness proofs for robotic motion planning as well as efficient algorithms for a wide variety of robotic motion planning problems. In the last five years he has led a group at Duke which bas developed novel self-assembled DNA nanostructures and patterned DNA lattices, as well as various molecular robotic devices.

He is the author of over 150 publications and has been awarded Fellow of Association for the following organizations: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), IEEE, ACM and the Institute of Combinatorics. He is also President of Eagle Eye, Inc., which specializes in defense applications of DNA biotechnology.