John McCarthy invented Lisp, and was a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence.
The linked lists associated with Lisp were originally developed by Alan Newell and J.C. Shaw for the IPL language (the last and only published version was IPL-V).
McCarthy provided the Lisp syntax, anonymous functions (by encoding Church's lambda notation), and an interpreter for a minimal Lisp written in Lisp. Garbage collection was invented for Lisp.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/john-mccarthy-father-of-ai-and-lisp-dies-at-84/
Edit:
A view by one of his former students...
http://bertrandmeyer.com/2011/11/07/john-mccarthy/