John Fitch (computer scientist)
John Peter Fitch is a computer scientist, mathematician and composer, who has worked with relativity, planetary astronomy, computer algebra and Lisp. Alongside Victor Lazzarini and Steven Yi, he is the project leader for audio programming language Csound, having a leading role in its development since the early 1990s; and he was a director of Codemist Ltd, which developed the Norcroft C compiler. He is married to historian Audrey Fitch.
Born in Barnsley, Yorkshire, England in December 1945, Fitch was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, and spent six years there as a postdoctoral researcher - winning the Adams Prize for Mathematics in 1975 for a joint essay with David Barton entitled Applications of algebraic manipulative systems to physics.
Fitch visited the University of Utah for a year, then lectured at Leeds for 18 months, before becoming professor and then Chair of Software Engineering at Bath, which his biography claims is "a subject about which he knows little"; his 31-year career there lasted April 1980 – September 2011, after which he was named an adjunct professor of music at Maynooth University.
Fitch lectured for the module CM20029: The Essence of Compilers, as well as optional modules involving computer music and digital signal processing. According to his biography, "despite his long hair and beard, and the uncertain spelling of his name, was never a hippie".
