Women have contributed enormously to various fields. Although the representation of women in STEM is not upto the mark, it is steadily improving every single year. Here’s a list of some influential female computer scientists from various races and ethnicities :
1)ADA LOVELACE:
She was a pioneer in computational science. She is often referred to as “The Mother of Modern Computing”. She was the world’s first computer programmer. She became the first person to write algorithms to calculate Bernoull’s number for Charles Baggage’s analytical engine. Her work titled “Analytical Engine” is considerred as a predecessor of debugging.Every year, second Tuesday of October is celebrated as ‘Ada Lovelace Day’, which is an international celebration of women’s achievements in STEM fields.
2)ANITA BORG:
She was an American computer scientist who founded the Institute for women and Technology,the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and Systers, the first email network for women in technology. She received her PHD in computer science from NYU for research on Synchronization efficiency of operating systems. She is internationally recognised for her contribution to computer science for which she received the ‘Heinz Award’ ,‘Augusta Ada Lovelace Award’,’EFF Award’ etc.She was appointed to the presidential commision by president Bill Clinton for advancement of women in STEM in 1999.Her non-profit organisation AnitaB.org is making enormous contributions to women in STEM even today, more than 2 decades after it was founded.
3)MARGARET HAMILTON:
Margeret Hamilton is an American computer scientist, systems engineer and business owner). She was the director of software engineering at MIT instrumentation laboaratory which developed software for NASA’s Apollo program. She was also involved with the SAGE program, the first US air defense system at MIT. She coined the term ‘software engineer’ because she felt that developers earned the right to be called engineers. She co founded the company higher order software in 1976 and also Hamilton Technologies.
She has received numerous awards like NASA exceptional space act award and Presidential Medal of freedom by president Barack Obama.
4)GRACE HOPPER:
Grace Hopper is an American computer scientist and United States Navy Rear Admiral.She was the first to devise machine independent programming languages and FLOW-MATIC programming languages.She got a phd in mathematics from yale university.She invented one of the first linkers and the first compiler, a program that translates programming code to machine language. She and her team who worked on MARK 1 the first electromechanical computer in United States. They worked on secret calculations for war effort during world war 2.She also wrote a 561 page user manual for MARK1.She was an extremely gifted teacher,communicator and programmer.She received the ‘National Medal of Technology and innovation’,’IEEE Emmanuel R Plore Award’. She was awarded the ‘Presidential Medal of Freedom’ in 2016.
5)SANGHAMITRA BANDYOPADHYAY:
She is an Indian computational scientist who specializes in computational Biology.She is a professor and the director of the Indian Statistical Institute. She obtained her phd in 1998 from the Indian Statistical Institute.Her research is mainly focused on machine learning,bioinformatics,pattern recognition. She is a part of prime minister’s Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Counsil.
6)SUNITA SARAWAGI:
Dr.Sunita Sarawagi is the Institute Chair Professor of Computer Science at IIT Bombay. She completed her phd in computer science from UC Berkeley in 1996. Her research interests include data analysis ,machine learning,databases and statistics.She works on extracting structured information from unstructured information and maximising the reuse of deep neural networks. She has received several awards like IBM Faculty Award,Fellow of Indian National Academy of engineering, infosys prize etc.
7)XIA PEISU:
Xia Peisu was a Chinese computer scientist who is often referred to as the ‘The Mother of Computer Science in China’.She designed high speed array processor and multiple parallel computers.She has contributed enormously to the design and research of high speed computers.She earned a doctrate from University of Edinberg in 1950.China computer federation honoured Xia Peisu with’Lifetime Achievement Award’ in 2010.
8)CHIEKO ASAKAWA:
Chieko Asakawa is a blind Japanese computer scientist.She earned her phd in engineering from University of Tokyo in 2004. She is known for her work in IBM research for accessibility.She developed the ‘IBM Home Page Reader’ which is the most widely used web to speech system.She has developed a word processor for braille, digital library for braille documents and increased accessibility of streaming devices.She developed NetScape browser which converts text to speech making it easier for blind people to navigate the web.She was added to women in Technology International Hall of Fame in 2003 and became an IBM fellow in 2009. She was awarded the ‘Medal of Honour with purple ribbon’ by the Japanese government in 2013.She was also elected as an Internation member of the US National Academy of Engineering to develop technologies for blind people.
9)DOROTHY VAUGHAN:
Dorothy Vaughan was an African American mathematician and programmer.She contributed to early years of the US space program.She earned a degree in mathematics from Wilberforce university in 1929. She became the first African American Manager at National Advisory committee for mathematics(NACA),which later became a part of NASA.She bacame an expert at FORTRAN ,a programming language used for scientific and algebraic applications. She started working for NACA’s west area computing unit , a group of talented female African American mathematics.She succeeded despite racism in NACA where black and white people had seperate restrooms and dining halls.
10)LATANYA SWEENEY:
Latanya Sweeney is a professor and director of the data privacy lab at Harvard university .She formerly served as the Chief Tehchnologist of Federal Trade Commission. She received a PHD in Computer science from MIT in 2001.Her data privacy has been conducting research about data privacy. She has made several contributions to privacy technology.Her best academic work is titled ‘k-anoymity’ .She has received several honours including American Psychiatric Association’s Privacy Advocate Award, and Dana Hall’s Distinguished Alumina Award in 2010 etc.
* HONOURABLE MENTIONS:
@ Kalika Bali(Microsoft research)
@ Aditi Sen De(Professor at Harish-Chandra Research Institute,Allahabad)
@ Katherine Johnson (American Mathematician,NASA)
@ Frances Allen(IBM,First woman Turing Fellow, IEEE,ACM)
@ Elizabeth J Feiner(Stanford Research Institute, Ran original ARPANET)
@ Carol Shaw(First female game designer and vidoe game programmer)
@ Fuqing Shaw(IEEE, Peking University professor)
@ Sanghamitra Mohanty(Utkal university,Women Engineering Society of United Kingdom)
@ Katherine Johnson(NASA Reseach mathematician,NASA group achievement award,Congressional gold medal)
@ Marsha Rhea Williams (IBM, first african american woman to earn a phd in computer science)
@ Emma Haruka Iwao (world record for most accurate value of pi)
