John Hopcroft is an American computer scientist known for his significant contributions to the fields of theoretical computer science and algorithm design. He was born on October 7, 1939, and is best recognized for his work on automata theory and graph theory. Hopcroft co-authored the influential textbook "Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation," which is widely used in computer science education. In 1986, Hopcroft was awarded the Turing Award, one of the highest honors in computer science, for his research on algorithms and data structures. He has held academic positions at several prestigious institutions, including Cornell University and Stanford University, where he has mentored many students and researchers in the field.