The 15 Most Important Women in Tech History
The 15 Most Important Women in Tech History
Posted 03/01/2011 at 4:50pm
| by Amber Bouman
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Do a quick Google News search for "women in technology" and your results are sure to be bemoaning the lack of female bodies in the industry (or maybe just results for that White Town album). Last year both the NYT and the WSJ had articles related to the topic – and published within a few weeks of each other – with the WSJ’s title being “Addressing the Lack of Women Leading Tech Start-Ups” and the intro to the NYT piece setting the tone with: “It’s become a familiar lament: Where are the women in technology?” Likewise, the Wikipedia entry for "Women in Computing" focuses almost entirely on the decline of women in tech-related fields, the modern day fights against sexism in the industry, and has sections like "Attracting women in computer science" and "Gender theory and women in computing." (Interesting side note: there is no entry for "Men in computing.")
Very rarely do stories of women and technology vary in tone from the gender gap theme. Where are the women? Well, heck, we’ve been here all along - something we've recently pointed out in our Valentine's Day piece about ENIAC. So, in honor of Women's History Month and Ada Lovelace Day (March 24th), and all the women in tech, we’ve decided to pay homage by counting down the 15 Most Important Women in Tech History.
15. The Ladies of ENIAC
Comprised of Kay McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, Fran Bilas, Ruth Lichterman, Adele Goldstine (and Betty Snyder), these ladies were the first “computors” working on ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Engineering. Bearing the job title of “computor” the ladies were responsible for making calculations for tables of firing and bombing trajectories, and to determine the correct sequence of steps to complete the calculations for each problem and to set up the ENIAC accordingly. (This, by the way, meant the women manuevered 3,000 switches and 80 tons of hardware in order to program ENIAC by hand). The need to perform the calculations with greater speed prompted ENIACs development, hence making these flesh-and-blood “computors” obsolete. Adele Goldstine and Betty Jennings were instrumental in programming ENIACs stored program, Goldstine was also responsible for writing ENIAC’s original technical manual. Through their contributions, we gained the first software application and the first programming classes. The ladies of ENIAC were inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame in 1997.
14. Jean E. Sammet
Another woman often (and erroneously) called the first to be awarded a Ph.D. in Computer Science (1968, Stanford), Sammet also held a B.A. in Mathematics from Mount Holyoke College (1948) and an M.A. in Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1949). Sammet certainly put her mathematics knowledge to use; she was responsible for developing the first computer language while working at IBM. Sammet’s program, FORMAC, was the first widely used computer language for the symbolic manipulation of mathematical formulas. Sammet worked at IBM for 27 years, and was a member of the subcommittee that created COBOL, as well as the President of the ACM from 1974-1976. She was also an ACM Fellow (1994) and yet another lady on our list to receive the Lovelace Award (1989).
13. Frances Allen
Allen, who earned a B.Sc. degree in mathematics in 1954 (New York State College for Teachers) and a M.Sc. in mathematics in 1957 (University of Michigan), achieved great progress in the areas of compliers, code optimization and parallelization. A Fellow of the IEEE, the ACM and the Computer History Museum, Allen did her seminal work at IBM – where she became the first IBM Fellow in 1989. Although she worked for IBM for 45 years, Allen also had a hand in intelligence work via programming languages and security codes for the NSA. Inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame in 1997, and winning the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award in 2002, Allen was also the first woman to win the prestigious Turing Award (aka the “Nobel Prize of computing”) in 2006.
12. Betty Holberton
Born Frances Elizabeth Snyder, Betty Holberton attended the University of Pennysylvania, where on her first day of classes, she was reportedly told by her math professor to quit wasting her time attempting a mathematics degree and to stay home and raise children. Holberton instead studied journalism, then went on to be hired by the Moore School of Eningeering to be one of the first “computors” to work on ENIAC. Apparently her professor was wrong, as she became the Chief of the Programming Research Branch, Applied Mathematics Laboratory at the David Taylor Model Basin in 1959, helped to develop UNIVAC, wrote the first generative programming system (SORT/MERGE), and the first statistical analysis package for the 1950 U.S. Census. Holberton worked with John Mauchly to develop the C-10 insturctions for BINAC (generally considered to be the origins of modern programming languages), and also worked with Grace Hopper in the early standards of COBOL and FORTRAN. Not only did Holberton create commands, but she was also responsible for developing the numeric keypad and for making computers that awful beige color. Holberton was the only woman, of the original six ENIAC programmers, to receive the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award in 1997.
11. Sister Mary Kenneth Keller
Although Barbara Liskov is often named as the first woman to be awarded a Ph.D. in computer science, that honor actually goes to Sister Keller who beat Liskov to the punch by three years. After earning her Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin in 1965, Sister Keller went on to assist in the development of BASIC computer language at Dartmouth – which had previously held a “men only” rule. Sister Keller, who also held a BS in Mathematics and an MS in Mathematics and Physics from DePaul University, felt that women should be involved in computer science (especially in the field of information specialist) and has been quoted as saying “We’re having an information explosion…and it’s certainly obvious that information is of no use unless it’s available.” Also interested in advancements toward AI, Sister Keller founded – and directed – the computer science department at Clarke College for twenty years.
10. Erna Schneider Hoover
Hoover, who earned a Ph.D in the philosophy and foundations of mathematics from Yale, began working as a researcher at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey in 1954. During her tenure at Bell, Hoover created a computerized telephone switching system that used a computer to monitor incoming calls. The computer would automatically adjust a call’s acceptance rate, which helped eliminate overloading problems. The principles of Hoovers system are still in use today; for her achievement, she was awarded one of the first software patents ever issued and made the first female supervisor of a technical department at Bell.
9. Karen Sparck Jones
Another Brit on our list is Karen Sparck Jones, who is often considered a founder of information retrieval. Sparck Jones, who worked at Cambridge’s Computer Laboratory from 1974-2002, concentrated her work on natural language processing and information retrieval. Her most notable contribution was the concept of inverse document frequency (IDF) weighting in information retrieval – which is still used in most search engines today. Sparck Jones retired in 2002 holding the post of Professor of Computers and Information and was also the first woman to receive the Lovelace Medal awarded by the British Computer Society.
8. Sophie Wilson
Wilson, a British computer scientist, is most often noted for designing the Acorn Microcomputer in the late 70’s. The Acorn Microcomputer, later called Acorn System 1, was the first of many systems sold by Acorn Computers. However, Wilson wasn’t content to stop there - In 1981, she revamped Acorn Atom’s BASIC programming language dialect into Acorn Proton. The Proton, another microcomputer, won Acorn an illustrious contract with the BBC. In 1983 Wilson contrived the instruction set for one of the very first RISC processors, the Acorn RISC Machine, which you know as ARM. Wilson also designed Acorn Replay, a video architecture for Acorn machines, which contained OS extensions for video access as well as the codecs themselves and optimized high frame rate video.
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agenbola
January 24, 2012 at 9:31pm
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January 10, 2012 at 7:26am
"Attracting women in computer science" and "Gender theory and women in computing." (Interesting side note: there is no entry for "Men in computing.")Tolmol Directory
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jhonywalker
December 24, 2011 at 9:04am
Aside from Hedy Lamar that others have mentioned, I would have included Adele Goldberg, who played a pivotal role on the Xerox PARC team that developed Smalltalk, object oriented programming. Limited Tort | Limited Tort in Philadelphia
jhonywalker
December 20, 2011 at 9:39pm
So, in honor of Women's History Month and Ada Lovelace Day (March 24th), and all the women in tech, we’ve decided to pay homage by counting down the 15 Most Important Women in Tech History. cedar decks | cedar deck boards | prestige decking | buy western red cedar | cedar deck lumber
Philips
September 25, 2011 at 12:48pm
These women are adorable. Thank you for posting the adorability of a woman. These things are history, shouts the awesomeness of a woman's ability.
Crackalackin
March 08, 2011 at 3:24am
An interesting tidbit that I didn't see listed, Admiral Hopper had a ship named after her:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Hopper_(DDG-70)
jojo jaunt
March 04, 2011 at 3:05pm
Nicely done article. Aside from Hedy Lamar that others have mentioned, I would have included Adele Goldberg, who played a pivotal role on the Xerox PARC team that developed Smalltalk, object oriented programming, graphical user interfaces, and other aspects central to modern computing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adele_Goldberg_(computer_scientist)
grue42
March 03, 2011 at 7:01am
Love the article although I would also swap Sophie Wilson for Hedy Lamarr. The Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace and Hedy Lamarr stories were definite influences on my path to gEEkdom (Also piano practicing, but that didn't end as successfully)
Can we talk about "babes" in STEM fields for a minute? Would someone care to explain the relationship between an individual's relative attractiveness and their capability to make technological advancements? It's that kind of attitude that discouraging girls from pursuing science.
How about instead we support and increase visibility of positive rolemodels (like the women featured in this awesome article), support young women (and men) interested in these fields and encourage critical thinking and engineering in and outside the classroom?I know I wouldn't have had the strength to make it through if I didn't have the support of female engineering rolemodels. You bet I'm out there trying to pass it on. Way to go Amber Bouman!
Morete
March 02, 2011 at 4:37am
I understand Einstein's wife actually invented all of his theories and he stole the ideas from her, according to some National Organizations. This brings into question if Mrs. Shakespeare wrote the plays and poems....?
Vernak
March 01, 2011 at 10:39pm
I liked the article but I feel you missed a few big ones: Hedy Lamarr. While known for being a beautiful actress, she was also a talented mathmetician and her research is the precursor to spread spectrum technology. I believe the Max PC crowd would find her story very interesting.
Another big name is Patty McHugh of IBM. As part of Project Acorn, she designed the first motherboard and gave it its name. Project Acorn is ultimately the IBM Personal Computer.
Bucherm
March 01, 2011 at 9:45pm
The appropriate statement for Grace Hopper would be "That's Admiral to you *sailor*", not "soldier". Soldiers are people who were too dumb to join the Navy and so wander the desert getting shot at by strangers.
JoBlo
March 01, 2011 at 8:18pm
I enjoyed this article more than I thought i would. I started reading this with the intent to just skim it and see if a could recognize any of these people, and sadly i could not. I did however read this whole article in great detail. There seems to be a trend in relation between sexism, and the earlier the time period. The earlier in time a woman wanted to explore the computer world, the more hurtles they had to jump to get there. I think it would be safe to say that these women are not only notable in their own right for what they have done for the industry, but even more so, because they had so much more weight put onto then from society telling them they could not, or not do it as well as a man. I think that more women should stand up, and do what they want to do carrier wise, regardless what is considered a social norm or not, epically in a country where you have every right to do so. This issue seems to be dwindling more so every year, but i do feel that it is still there.
Thank you for the article, I have gained a different perspective on the industry I work in because of this article, and the extended reading i have done since, because of it.
sixfivebeastman
March 01, 2011 at 6:28pm
Not sure Sophie Wilson should be on this list - she's technically transgender:
ABouman
March 01, 2011 at 6:46pm
Yeah, I know, but since she identifies as a woman, I decided to count her as one.
jakeson
March 02, 2011 at 9:55am
I am trying to be a douche. The DNA results will show male.
I feel like i was a tree born into a mans body.
Now, I'm going to the arborist to get this peni$ sawed off.
Then wait for my Arbor day cards to arrive. I'll be watching for yours.
OH and then maybe you'll add me to the 15 most impoortant
hardwoods in tech history.
Acorns and pollen,
jakeson
sixfivebeastman
March 01, 2011 at 7:09pm
sorry...not trying to be a douche, but she did her research for the ACORN MPs when she was a man....soooo...I don't know...good article. :)
purplemecha
March 01, 2011 at 6:21pm
Thanks for the fascinating read. I'll be tweeting and emailing this to everyone I know.
benicoletti
March 01, 2011 at 5:55pm
I think we should get the viewers opinion but Amber you left yourself out?? Lets see some more female staffer / contributions. MACLife is holding out on us.
purplemecha
March 01, 2011 at 6:17pm
Eye of the beholder. I think Ada looks to be a fair lady. There are women (men too) who think Bill Gates is a stud. Beauty has nothing to do with brain skillz, you like some and disgusted by some. Oh yeah, brain skillz is it's own attraction.
ShyLinuxGuy
March 01, 2011 at 8:18pm
Sooner or later we'll get some babe who makes computer history...somebody like the geeky Barbie, maybe, more likely though is somebody from Korea or Japan, where they do a lot of the semiconductor stuff.
My girlfriend is a total babe but far from making computer history. She doesn't know X.org from XML, let alone PDF from pixel. And getting her to use Linux--she wouldn't even try it. Not even touch it. Told her that it was like a Mac in some ways and she still wouldn't buy my argument.
We do need some babes in the IT industry
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