Diana Elizabeth Forsythe (November 11, 1947 – August 14, 1997) was a leading researcher in

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

and a key figure in the field of science and technology studies. She is recognized for her significant anthropological studies of

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...

and informatics, as well as for her studies on the roles of gender and power in computer engineering.

Early life and education

Forsythe was born in 1947 in

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing t ...

to computer scientists Alexandra Illmer Forsythe and George Forsythe. Her family moved to

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...

in 1957, and she attended Palo Alto High School. Forsythe attended Swarthmore College for her bachelor's degree in anthropology and sociology and earned her PhD in cultural anthropology and social demography from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1974. She completed fieldwork in

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and produced a number of papers on anthropology in Europe before turning her attention to knowledge engineering and medical informatics in the United States. She spent a year as a

postdoctoral fellow A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

in the

Knowledge Systems Laboratory Knowledge Systems Laboratory (KSL) was an artificial intelligence research laboratory within the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University until 2007, located in the Gates Computer Science Building, Stanford. Work focused on knowledge ...

at Stanford University from 1987 to 1988. She worked as a research associate professor in the computer science and anthropology departments at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

before joining the faculty at the

University of California, San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It con ...

. In 1994, she returned to Stanford as a visiting scholar for one year and then as a Systems Development Foundation Fellow at the Center for Biomedical Ethics in 1995. During this period she also started an oral history project focusing on the experiences of women in computer science.

Death

In August 1997, Forsythe died during a hiking accident in northern Alaska.

Legacy

Following her death, memorials were held at the annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association and the

Society for Social Studies of Science The Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) is a non-profit scholarly association devoted to the social studies of science and technology (STS). It was founded in 1975 and as of 2008 its international membership exceeds 1,200. In 2016, over ...

. In 2015, the Diana Forsythe Memorial fund began awarding the Forsythe Dissertation Award for Social Studies of Science, Technology, and Health to doctoral students in any social science field at the University of California, San Francisco or Stanford University.

Diana Forsythe Prize

The Diana Forsythe Prize was created in 1998 to recognize the best book or series of articles relating to feminist anthropological research on work, science, and technology. The Prize is awarded annually at the American Anthropological Association meeting and is supported by the General Anthropology Division.

References

American women anthropologists Medical anthropologists Swarthmore College alumni Cornell University alumni University of California, San Francisco faculty American Quakers People from Santa Monica, California Accidental deaths from falls 1947 births 1997 deaths Stanford University faculty 20th-century American anthropologists 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century Quakers {{US-anthropologist-stub