Hank Levy (computer scientist)

Henry M. "Hank" Levy is an American computer scientist. He holds the Wissner-Slivka Chair in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington (U.W.).

Levy's research concerns operating systems, distributed systems, the internet, and computer architecture. In his early career, Levy worked at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), where he was a member of the design and engineering team for the VMS operating system for the VAX computer. His graduate work resulted in the book Capability-Based Computer Systems. He joined the University of Washington Department of Computer Science and Engineering in 1983 and is now Chair of the department. He was involved with several early object-oriented distributed systems (Eden and Emerald), and also with the invention of simultaneous multithreading. Levy co-founded two startups, Performant (founded in 2000 and acquired by Mercury in 2003), and Skytap (founded in 2006). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Levy is also curator of an art collection for the Paul G. Allen Center, home of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. The resulting collection represents 22 artists, each with some connection to the University of Washington. Artists represented include Jacob Lawrence, George Tsutakawa, Kenneth Callahan, Akio Takamori, Alden Mason, Imogen Cunningham, Art Wolfe, and Chuck Close.