J. C. R. Licklider was a computer scientist best known for his pioneering research in artificial intelligence and whose work established the technological basis for the concepts of time sharing and resource sharing.

Licklider was the only child of Joseph Parron Licklider, a teacher, and Margaret (Robnett) Licklider, a homemaker. After graduating from high school in 1933, Licklider enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis. He received an A.B. degree in psychology in 1937. He then matriculated in the graduate school at Washington and graduated in one year with an A.M. degree in psychology. In 1938 he entered the University of Rochester in New York, from which he received a Ph.D. in psychology in 1942. During World War II Licklider did research on hearing and speech communication in the Psycho-Acoustics Laboratory at Harvard University under the auspices of the Office of Strategic Research and Development and the National Defense...