Barbara Liskov heads the Programming Methodology Group in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, where she has conducted research and has been a professor since 1972.  In 2008, she was named an Institute Professor, the highest honor awarded to an MIT faculty member.

A member of the National Academy of Engineering, she is a Fellow of ACM and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  She received the Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award in 1996, and in 2002, she was named by Discover magazine as one of the 50 most important women in science.  She received the IEEE John von Neumann medal in 2004.  In 2005, she was awarded the title of ETH Honorary Doctor by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH). In 2008, she received the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Languages Achievement Award. In 2012, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In 2009, Liskov received the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award for her foundational innovations to designing and building the pervasive computer systems that power daily life. Her achievements in programming language design have made software more reliable and easier to maintain. They are now the basis of every important programming language since 1975, including Ada, C++, Java, and C#.

One of the first U.S. women to be awarded a Ph.D. from a Computer Science department (in 1968 from Stanford University), Liskov revolutionized the programming field with groundbreaking research that underpins virtually every modern computer application for both consumers and businesses.  Her contributions have led to fundamental changes in building the computer software programs that form the infrastructure of our information-based society.  Her legacy has made software systems more accessible, reliable, and secure.