Murray Turoff

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Murray Turoff (February 13, 1936 – September 28, 2022) was a distinguished professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) and a key pioneer in computer-mediated communication. He was born in San Francisco and earned a BA in Mathematics and Physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1958, followed by a PhD in Physics from Brandeis University in 1965.

At NJIT, Turoff served as chair of the Information Systems Department, acting chair of the Computer and Information Science Department, and director of the Computerized Conferencing and Communications Center. He also taught at Rutgers Graduate School of Management from 1982 to 2005. He co-founded the Information Systems for Crisis Response and Management (ISCRAM) community.

Turoff designed EMISARI, the first group-communication-focused crisis management system, used during the 1971 Wage Price Freeze and other federal crises through the mid-1980s. He also created the Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) as part of a long-running research program on structured computer-mediated communication to test and evaluate different uses of human communication via computers.

He authored or co-authored eight books, including The Network Nation, co-written with his wife Starr Roxanne Hiltz. The book won the 1978 Association of American Publishers’ TSM Award for Best Technical Publication and became a foundational reference in the field.

Turoff received the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in 1994 for his significant contributions to computer-based communications and user empowerment. He was inducted into the International Academy for Systems and Cybernetic Sciences in 2018. He is remembered as a founding figure in information systems and crisis communication.