Pioneering Women of Computer Science

Following the next Debian-Women sexist discussion, related to the importance of women in computer science, Michael Norwick pasted a list of remarkable women in computer science. I knew many of them, but I liked to have them together. Thanks Michael!


Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852). born Augusta Ada Byron, was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron. She is widely known in modern times simply as Ada Lovelace. She is mainly known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is today appreciated as the "first programmer" since she was writing programs — that is, manipulating symbols according to rules—for a machine that Babbage had not yet built. She also foresaw the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching while others, including Babbage himself, focused only on these capabilities.

Edith Clarke (1883-1959) was an electrical engineer and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. She was the first woman employed as an electrical engineer in the United States, as well as the country's first female professor of electrical engineering.

Rósa Péter (1905-1977)

Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992). Inventor of the computer compiler, APT language, and COBOL. Grace Murray Hopper was born on December 9, 1906, in New York City. At the age of 22 she graduated from Vassar College with a B.A. in math and physics, at Yale University an M.A. in math and physics and her Ph.D. Joined the U.S. Naval Reserves in 1943. After her tour she went to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University. Helped programme the Mark series of computers. Later went back to the Navy rose to the rank of Rear Admiral. She then became a senior consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation. She worked there until she was in her early 80s.
Grace Hopper recorded the first actual computer actual "bug," a moth stuck between the relays on the Mark II. Hopper, a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy, enjoyed successful careers in academia, business, and the military while making history in the computer field. She helped program the Harvard Mark I and II and developed the first compiler, A-0. Her subsequent work on programming languages led to COBOL. Given the first Computer Science Man of the Year Award in 1969.

Alexandra Illmer Forsythe (1918-1980)

Evelyn Boyd Granville

Margaret R. Fox

Erna Schneider Hoover

Kay McNulty Mauchly Antonelli

Alice Burks

Adele Goldstine

Joan Margaret Winters

Marie Skłodowska–Curie (1867 – 1934) was a physicist and chemist of Polish upbringing and, subsequently, French citizenship. She was a pioneer in the field of radioactivity the only person honored with Nobel Prizes in two different sciences, and the first female professor at the University of Paris.

Source: The Computer Science Yale University