Hans Juergen Schneider is a professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Erlangen-Nuernberg (Germany). He obtained his Diploma in Mathematics from the University of Saarbruecken in 1961 and his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Hannover in 1965. Before moving to Erlangen, he was a professor at the Technical University of Berlin from 1970 to 1972.

His research interests lie mainly in the areas of graph transformations, programming language concepts, and programming methodology. In 1973, he was a co-author of the seminal paper on graph grammars, generalizing the concept of a formal language. In the 1980s and 1990s, he has published several papers applying this technique to describing asynchronous processes. In the programming language area, he has conducted research projects on set-theoretic concepts, on integrating physical units into the type system, and on a type system for asynchronous processes.

He has given lectures on using, designing, and implementing programming languages, as well as on the theoretical topics related to programming languages and programming methodology, such as syntax analysis, rewriting techniques, and efficient data structures, with special emphasis on integrating theoretical concepts into practical programming.

He joined ACM in 1964, and was involved in establishing the German chapter in 1968. He served as its vice chairman for several years. He chaired the program committee of the International Computing Symposium '83, organized by the European chapters of ACM, as well as the program committees of several national conferences, and was a member of many other program committees.

He has published a large number of journal and conference papers and handbooks, as well as textbooks on compiler construction and programming languages. Now, after retiring, he started to write a textbook on the categorical approach to graph transformations. He has written more than 70 reviews for Computing Reviews since 1977.