​Michael J. Quinn is a computer scientist and author. He did pioneering research in the field of parallel computing, and his textbooks on that subject have been used by hundreds of universities worldwide. In the early 2000s his focus shifted to computer ethics, and in 2004 he published a textbook, Ethics for the Information Age, that explores moral problems related to modern uses of information technology, such as privacy, intellectual property rights, computer security, computerized system failures, and the relationship between automation and unemployment. The book, now in its eighth edition, has been adopted by more than 250 colleges and universities in the United States and many more internationally.

A native Oregonian, he spent most of his early years in the Gresham area. After graduating from Gresham High School, he earned a B.S. in mathematics from Gonzaga University and an M.S. in computer sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He worked for two years as a software engineer at Tektronix, Inc., in Wilsonville and Beaverton, Oregon, then returned to graduate school to complete a Ph.D. in computer science from Washington State University. During his academic career he was a computer science professor at the University of New Hampshire and Oregon State University and a college dean at Seattle University. Now retired, he lives in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area.