John Cowan is a prominent figure in the field of linguistics and computer science. He is known for his contributions to the development of programming languages and natural language processing. Cowan has been involved in various projects that focus on improving the way computers understand and generate human language. In addition to his work in linguistics, John Cowan is also recognized for his involvement in the Unicode Consortium, where he has contributed to the standardization of text representation across different languages and platforms. His expertise has helped bridge the gap between technology and language, making communication more accessible in the digital age.