Root/Aliases

Image	Episode	Name	Occupation
	“Root Cause”, “Firewall”	Root	Hacker, Assassin
	Root first appears as a hacker and contract killer hired by Pete Matheson to incriminate Scott Powell for the killing of a congressman by planting false information. Root digitally meets Finch under this name. (“Root Cause”) She later introduces herself to Finch as "Root" before kidnapping him. (“Firewall”) Significance of alias: This alias comes from the superuser account "root" on Unix and Unix-like systems. Superuser accounts are used for system administration and have extreme clearance and power, like the ability to arbitrarily modify files. Windows has a similar account called "administrator", often shortened to 'admin'
	“Firewall”	Caroline Turing	Psychiatrist
	Works as a psychiatrist in New York City. She anonymously hires HR to put a hit on herself, resulting in the Machine giving Reese and Finch her number. Reese protects her while being pursued by the FBI, and sends her to Finch, who is waiting in a car. Root kills Alicia Corwin before introducing herself as "Root" to Finch. Significance of alias: Homage to Alan Turing, an early theorist on the subject of artificial intelligence and developer of the Turing machine, an early mathematical model for a computing machine, created in 1936.
	“Bad Code”	Kelly Dyson
	From Milwaukee, WI. Root uses the alias at a gas station in Relton, MD. Significance of alias: Probably a reference to physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson, "inventor" of the hypothetical Dyson sphere.
	“Bad Code”	Jane von Neumann
	From Seattle, WA. Root buys "Flowers for Algernon" and sent it to Barbara Russell as a cruel reminder of the death of Hanna Frey. Significance of alias: Refers to computing pioneer John Von Neumann, creator of the Von Neumann architecture for computers.
	“Booked Solid”, “Relevance”, “Zero Day”	Ms. May	Secretary
	Works as an office assistant at the Office of Special Counsel. She later interrogates Special Counsel on the whereabouts of the Machine. Significance of alias: Probably a reference to UK computing pioneer David May, originator of May's Law, a corollary to Moore's Law.
	“Relevance”	Veronica Sinclair	CIA Analyst
	Root poses as Michael Cole's CIA contact, keeping the real Veronica tied up in the bathroom. She meets Sameen Shaw for the first time under this name, and prepares to torture her for information on Daniel Aquino; information which Root believes holds the key to the Machine's location. She is forced to leave when Special Counsel's hit team arrives. Significance of alias: Probably a reference to Sir Clive Marles Sinclair (born 30 July 1940), is an English entrepreneur and inventor, most commonly known for his work in consumer electronics in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He produced the first slim-line electronic pocket calculator in 1972 (the Sinclair Executive). Sinclair later moved into the production of home computers and produced the Sinclair ZX80.
	“Liberty”, “Lady Killer”	Robin Farrow
	Finch places her in Stoneridge Hospital under this name, and she is a patient of Dr. Ronald Carmichael. (“Liberty”) Root uses the Machine's help to save herself from Hersh and escape the hospital. (“Lady Killer”) Significance of alias: May be inspired by the faro shuffle, an exact shuffle of playing cards in which the deck is evenly split and cards from each half of the deck alternate in the resulting shuffled deck. The faro shuffle is apparently used for parallel processing algorithms and has been analyzed mathematically using group theory. As Mr. Finch was the one registering Root at the hospital, he used his usual alias pattern by choosing a bird name - Robin.
	“Root Path (/)”, “Most Likely To...”	Augusta A. King	FBI Agent
	Root poses as a FBI Agent to retrieve Cyrus Wells from the NYPD after he was arrested. She uses the alias again to support Fusco and Finch in their investigation into the Leona Wainwright assassination and later in the same episode while rescuing them from Vigilance. Significance of alias: Born Augusta Ada Byron, her legal name was Augusta Ada King after her marriage to William King-Noel, Earl of Lovelace. However, she never really used the name "Augusta" and is best known as Ada Lovelace. As a result of her work on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, she is popularly known as the first computer programmer. The Ada programming language is named after her.
	“Prophets”	Sara Cook	United Nations Translator
	Root poses as a United Nations Translator whose assignment includes flirting with the Secretary General who loves red heads. Significance of alias: Mathematician Stephen Cook is best known for his work in computational complexity theory. The Cook reduction and Cook-Levin theorem are named after him. The name is misspelled in SPOV as Sarah Cooke in “B.S.O.D.” (15:05) and “QSO” (33:40).
	“Prophets”	Karen Iverson	Reporter
	Root poses as a New York Journal reporter to investigate the voting conspiracy regarding Samaritan and Simon Lee. Significance of alias: Kenneth Iverson was a noted mathematician and computer scientist who is best known for creating Iverson notation.
	“Prophets”	Hannah Karpinski	Restaurant Worker
	Root poses as a restaurant worker who was injured by drive-by shooting, while talking to Harold about Simon Lee, The Machine and its future. Significance of alias: This alias may refer to Jacek Karpiński, a Polish engineer who designed one of the first minicomputers. He was also a founder of the Laboratory of Artificial Intelligence. It also may combine the names of two major figures in math and computer science, Richard M. Karp and Waclaw Sierpinski. A number of theorems and algorithms bear Karp's name, while Siepinski is most widely known for the Sierpinski triangle, one of several types of fractals which are named after him.
	“Honor Among Thieves”	Veronique Chéreau	Nanny
	Root poses as a French NYC nanny ("French Mary Poppins Barbie") and makes contact to Jared Wilkins, a new suspect. Significance of alias: Possibly after Fabien Chéreau, a computer programmer and engineer best known for his work on the European Space Agency satellite Gaia and the open-source planetarium software Stellarium.
	“Honor Among Thieves”	Melinda Porter	Legal Secretary
	Root dresses like Melinda Porter, an employee working in the O.T.P.S. building. She drugs the real Melinda, uses her keys to get into the building and take down security cameras, so Finch can sabotage the 3D printers. Significance of alias: Possibly a reference to Arthur Porter, a British-Canadian engineer and pioneer in computing and biomedical engineering.
	“The Cold War”	Mr. Berenstain	Teddy bear
	Root's costume at a children's party Significance of alias: Berenstain Bears is the name of a popular series of children's picture books.
	“M.I.A.”	Alice Ginsburg	NYPD officer
	Root's identity to get access to surveilance footage at Maple's local police station. Significance of alias: Seymour Ginsburg was a computer science pioneer who made significant contributions to the theoretical underpinnings for databases, automata, and formal languages.
	“Blunt”, “YHWH”	Shannon	Software developer
	Under the Machine's direction, Root uses this identify to pitch an app to and be recruited by Caleb Phipps' company. Significance of alias: Possibly a reference to Claude Shannon, known as the father of information theory. The [Shannon limit] a concept in information theory which states the maximum rate at which data can be transmitted without error, was previously referenced by Henry Peck when he realized the existence of The Machine.
	“Asylum”	Monica Chaney	Doctor
	Significance of alias: Possibly a reference to either Cheney's algorithm by C.J. Cheney (a stop and copy method of tracing garbage collection in computer software systems), or a hacker Christopher Chaney (famously sentenced for wiretapping into emails of Hollywood celebrities at the end of 2012).
	“QSO”	Constance Ward	Traffic, NYPD
	Significance of alias: Possibly a reference to either Steve Ward (computer scientist, developer of the TRIX operating system, inventor of novel dynamic memory chip architecture and a real-time controller design; also worked on worked on organic computing), or Ward Christensen (inventor of the XMODEM file transfer protocol and a co-founder of the first bulletin board system (BBS) ever brought online).
	“QSO”	Petrina Durov	Dancer
	Significance of alias: Possibly a reference to Pavel Durov, russian entrepreneur who founded the social network VK and the instant messanger Telegram.
	“QSO”	Anna Beyers	Colonial Reenactor
	Significance of alias:
	“QSO”	Rose Franklin	Radio producer
	Significance of alias: Could be a reference to Charles Samuel Franklin, a noted British radio pioneer; he invented a number of important radio devices including the variable capacitor (patented 1902), ganged tuning (1907), variable coupling (1907), coaxial cable, and the Franklin oscillator; he is most famous for the Franklin beam aerial, his shortwave antenna.
	“Reassortment”	Jane Martin	CDC Inspector
	Significance of alias: Maybe James Martin, a british information technology author.