Douglas Richard Hofstadter is an American professor of cognitive science whose research focuses on the sense of "I", consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics. He is best known for his book G�del, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, first published in 1979. It won both the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction and a National Book Award for Science. His 2007 book I Am a Strange Loop won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Science and Technology. 

February 15th, 1945 in New York City (Age 79) as Douglas Richard Hofstadter