This is a timeline of

women in computing Women in computing were among the first programmers in the early 20th century, and contributed substantially to the industry. As technology and practices altered, the role of women as programmers has changed, and the recorded history of the fiel ...

. It covers the time when women worked as "

human computer The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613), meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. Ala ...

s" and then as programmers of physical computers. Eventually, women programmers went on to write software, develop Internet technologies and other types of programming. Women have also been involved in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

, various related types of engineering and computer hardware.

18th century

1757

* Nicole-Reine Etable de la Brière Lepaute worked on a team of human computers to determine the next visit of

Halley's Comet Halley's Comet or Comet Halley, officially designated 1P/Halley, is a short-period comet visible from Earth every 75–79 years. Halley is the only known short-period comet that is regularly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and thus the on ...

. The methods they developed have been used by successive human computing teams.

19th century

1842

Ada Lovelace Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (''née'' Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the An ...

was an analyst of

Charles Babbage Charles Babbage (; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer. Babbage is considered ...

analytical engine The Analytical Engine was a proposed mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage. It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's difference engine, which was a desig ...

and is considered by many the "first computer programmer".

1849

Maria Mitchell Maria Mitchell (Help:IPA/English, /məˈraɪə/; August 1, 1818 – June 28, 1889) was an American astronomer, librarian, naturalist, and educator. In 1847, she discovered a comet named 1847 VI (modern designation C/1847 T1) that was later kno ...

is hired by the U.S. Nautical Almanac Office to work as a computer on tables for the planet

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never f ...

1875

Anna Winlock Anna Winlock (1857–1904) was an American astronomer and human computer, one of the first members of female computer group known as "the Harvard Computers." She made the most complete catalog of stars near the north and south poles of her era. S ...

joined the

Harvard computers The Harvard Computers was a team of women working as skilled workers to process astronomical data at the Harvard Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The team was directed by Edward Charles Pickering (1877 to 1919) and, followi ...

, a group of women engaged in the production of astronomical data at Harvard.

1893

Henrietta Swan Leavitt Henrietta Swan Leavitt (; July 4, 1868 – December 12, 1921) was an American astronomer. A graduate of Radcliffe College, she worked at the Harvard College Observatory as a "computer", tasked with examining photographic plates in order to measu ...

joined the Harvard "computers". She was instrumental in discovery of the

cepheid variable A Cepheid variable () is a type of star that pulsates radially, varying in both diameter and temperature and producing changes in brightness with a well-defined stable period and amplitude. A strong direct relationship between a Cepheid vari ...

stars, which are evidence for the

expansion of the universe The expansion of the universe is the increase in distance between any two given gravitationally unbound parts of the observable universe with time. It is an intrinsic expansion whereby the scale of space itself changes. The universe does not ex ...

20th century

1916

* Beatrice Cave-Brown-Cave went to work as a human computer for the

Ministry of Munitions The Minister of Munitions was a British government position created during the First World War to oversee and co-ordinate the production and distribution of munitions for the war effort. The position was created in response to the Shell Crisis ...

1918

*Women were hired to do

ballistics Ballistics is the field of mechanics concerned with the launching, flight behaviour and impact effects of projectiles, especially ranged weapon munitions such as bullets, unguided bombs, rockets or the like; the science or art of designing a ...

calculations as human computers in Washington, D.C. The "chief computer" of the group was Elizabeth Webb Wilson.

1920

Mary Clem Mary A. Clem (née Mary A. McLaughlin; 19051979) was an American mathematician, and a human computer. She was a staff member at Iowa State University, and was recognized for inventing the “zero check” technique for detecting errors. Biogr ...

leads the computing lab at Iowa State College.

1921

Edith Clarke Edith Clarke (February 10, 1883 – October 29, 1959) was the first woman to be professionally employed as an electrical engineer in the United States, and the first female professor of electrical engineering in the country. She was the first w ...

files a patent for a graphical calculator for problem solving electric power line transmission problems.

1926

Grete Hermann Grete Hermann (2 March 1901 – 15 April 1984) was a German mathematician and philosopher noted for her work in mathematics, physics, philosophy and education. She is noted for her early philosophical work on the foundations of quantum mechanics, ...

published the foundational paper for computerized algebra. It was her doctoral thesis, titled "The Question of Finitely Many Steps in Polynomial Ideal Theory", and published in Mathematische Annalen.

1935

*The

National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) was a United States federal agency founded on March 3, 1915, to undertake, promote, and institutionalize aeronautical research. On October 1, 1958, the agency was dissolved and its assets ...

(NACA) which became

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...

, hired a group of five women to work in their computer pool analyzing data from wind tunnels and flight tests.

1939

*The Austrian Johanna Piesch published two pioneering papers on switching algebra.

1940

*American women were recruited to do ballistics calculations and program computers during WWII. Around 1943–1945, these women "computers" used a

differential analyzer The differential analyser is a mechanical analogue computer designed to solve differential equations by integration, using wheel-and-disc mechanisms to perform the integration. It was one of the first advanced computing devices to be used operat ...

in the basement of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering to speed up their calculations, though the machine required a mechanic to be totally accurate and the women often rechecked the calculations by hand. Phyllis Fox ran a differential analyzer single-handedly, with differential equations as her program specification.

1941

Mavis Batey Mavis Lilian Batey, MBE (née Lever; 5 May 1921 – 12 November 2013), was a British code-breaker during World War II. She was one of the leading female codebreakers at Bletchley Park. She later became a historian of gardening who campaigne ...

broke the Italian Naval code while working at

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War. The mansion was constructed during the years following ...

. *The United States begins recruiting African-American college graduates to work at

Langley Air Force Base Langley Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in Hampton, Virginia, adjacent to Newport News. It was one of thirty-two Air Service training camps established after the entry of the United States into World War I in April 1 ...

as human computers.

1942

*On 11 August,

Hedy Lamarr Hedy Lamarr (; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914 January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American film actress and inventor. A film star during Hollywood's golden age, Lamarr has been described as one of the greatest movie actress ...

and co-inventor, George Antheil, received their patent for

frequency hopping Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) is a method of transmitting radio signals by rapidly changing the carrier frequency among many distinct frequencies occupying a large spectral band. The changes are controlled by a code known to both tra ...

1943

*Women worked as WREN Colossus operators during WW2 at

. *Wives of scientists working on the

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

with mathematical training were hired as

human computers The term "computer", in use from the early 17th century (the first known written reference dates from 1613), meant "one who computes": a person performing mathematical calculations, before electronic computers became commercially available. Ala ...

to work on the

ENIAC ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first programmable, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. There were other computers that had these features, but the ENIAC had all of them in one pac ...

and

MANIAC I __NOTOC__ The MANIAC I (''Mathematical Analyzer Numerical Integrator and Automatic Computer Model I'') was an early computer built under the direction of Nicholas Metropolis at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. It was based on the von Neuma ...

computers. This included Klara Dan von Neumann, Augusta H. Teller, and Adele Goldstine. * Gertrude Blanch led the

Mathematical Tables Project The Mathematical Tables Project was one of the largest and most sophisticated computing organizations that operated prior to the invention of the digital electronic computer. Begun in the United States in 1938 as a project of the Works Progress Admi ...

group from 1938 to 1948. During World War II, the project operated as a major computing office for the U.S. government and did calculations for the

Office of Scientific Research and Development The Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) was an agency of the United States federal government created to coordinate scientific research for military purposes during World War II. Arrangements were made for its creation during May 1 ...

, the Army, the Navy, the Manhattan Project and other institutions. *

Ruth Leach Amonette Ruth Leach Amonette (September 24, 1916 – June 21, 2004) was an American businesswoman, author, and educator. She was appointed as the first female executive and vice president at IBM in 1943, becoming one of only a few women in high-ranking c ...

was elected vice president at IBM, the first woman to hold that role.

1945

* Marlyn Meltzer is hired as one of the first

programmers. * Kay McNulty Mauchly Antonelli is hired as one of the ENIAC programmers and is accredited with creating the first 'subroutine'.

1946

* Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder,

Frances Spence Frances V. Spence ( Bilas; March 2, 1922 – July 18, 2012) was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC (the first electronic digital computer). She is considered one of the first computer programmers in history. The other five ENIAC progr ...

, Kay McNulty,

Marlyn Wescoff Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer (1922 – December 7, 2008) was an American mathematician and computer programmer, and one of the six original programmers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. Early life Meltzer was born Mar ...

, and

Ruth Lichterman Ruth Teitelbaum ( Lichterman; February 1, 1924 – August 9, 1986) was one of the first computer programmers in the world. Teitelbaum was one of the original programmers for the ENIAC computer. The other five ENIAC programmers were Jean Bar ...

were the regularly working programmers of the

. Adele Goldstine, also involved in the programming, wrote the program manual for the

1947

Irma Wyman Irma M. Wyman (January 31, 1928 - November 17, 2015) was an early computer engineer and the first woman to become vice president of Honeywell, Inc. She was a systems thinking tutor and was the first female CIO of Honeywell. Academic life In 19 ...

worked on a missile guidance project at the Willow Run Research Center. To calculate trajectory, they used mechanical calculators. In 1947–48, she visited the U.S. Naval Proving Ground where

Grace Hopper Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, she was a pioneer of compu ...

was working on similar problems and discovered they were using a prototype of a programmable Mark II computer.

1948

Kathleen Booth Kathleen Hylda Valerie Booth ( Britten, 9 July 1922 – 29 September 2022) was a British computer scientist and mathematician who wrote the first assembly language and designed the assembler and autocode for the first computer systems at Birkbe ...

is credited with writing the assembly language for the ARC2 computer. * Dorothy Vaughn becomes the first black supervisor at NACA.

1949

, was a

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

officer and one of the first programmers of the

Harvard Mark I The Harvard Mark I, or IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), was a general-purpose electromechanical computer used in the war effort during the last part of World War II. One of the first programs to run on the Mark I was init ...

, known as the "Mother of

COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily u ...

". She developed the first

compiler In computing, a compiler is a computer program that translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primarily used for programs tha ...

for an electronic computer, known as A-0. She also popularized the term "debugging" – a reference to a moth extracted from a relay in the Harvard Mark II computer. * Evelyn Boyd Granville was the second African-American woman in the U.S. to receive a PhD in mathematics. From 1956 to 1960, she worked for IBM on the

Project Vanguard Project Vanguard was a program managed by the United States Navy Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), which intended to launch the first artificial satellite into low Earth orbit using a Vanguard rocket. as the launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral ...

and

Project Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...

space programs, analyzing orbits and developing computer procedures. *On 6 May, the EDSAC performs its first calculations using a program written by Beatrice Worsely.

1950

Ida Rhodes Ida Rhodes (born Hadassah Itzkowitz; May 15, 1900 – February 1, 1986) was an American mathematician who became a member of the clique of influential women at the heart of early computer development in the United States. Childhood Hadassah Itz ...

was one of the pioneers in the analysis of systems of programming. She co-designed the C-10 language in the early 1950s for the UNIVAC I – a computer system that was used to calculate the census. *

creates

Assembly Language In computer programming, assembly language (or assembler language, or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as Assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence b ...

1951

* Frances Elizabeth "Betty" Snyder develops a UNIVAC program, the first sort-merge generator.

1952

* Mary Coombs was one of the first programmers on, and was the first female programmer on LEO, the first business computer. She went on to work on LEO II and LEO III. *Hungarian-born Klara Dan von Neumann pioneers the programming of

. *Canadian,

Beatrice Worsley Beatrice Helen Worsley (18 October 1921 – 8 May 1972) was a Canadian computer scientist who was the first female computer scientist in Canada. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of Cambridge with Maurice Wilkes as adviser, the f ...

, completes her doctorate in computer science, becoming the first woman to earn that degree.

1954

* Thelma Estrin works on Israel's first computer, the

WEIZAC WEIZAC (''Weizmann Automatic Computer'') was the first computer in Israel, and one of the first large-scale, stored-program, electronic computers in the world. It was built at the Weizmann Institute during 1954–1955, based on the Institute for ...

1955

Annie Easley Annie Jean Easley (April 23, 1933 – June 25, 2011) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist. She worked for the Lewis Research Center (now Glenn Research Center) of the National Aeronautics and Space Administr ...

starts working as a human computer for NACA. *

Kateryna Yushchenko Kateryna Mykhaylivna Yushchenko ( uk, Катерина Михайлівна Ющенко, née Chumachenko (Чумаченко); September 1, 1961 in Chicago) was the First Lady of Ukraine from 2005 to 2010. She is married to former Ukrainian Pr ...

creates the

Address programming language The Address programming language (russian: Адресный язык программирования uk, Адресна мова програмування) is one of the world's first high-level programming languages. It was created in 1955 by ...

that made possible indirect addressing and addresses of the highest rank – analogous to Pointers.

1958

*Orbital calculations for the United States'

Explorer 1 Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States in 1958 and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The mission followed the first two satellites the previous year; the Soviet Union's S ...

satellite were solved by the NASA

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, La Cañada Flintridge, California ...

's all-female "computers", many of whom were recruited out of high school. Mechanical calculators were supplemented with logarithmic calculations performed by hand. *

designs the computer language, FLOWMATIC. *5 May, Langley desegregates, closing down the

West Area Computers The West Computers (West Area Computing Unit, West Area Computers) were the African American, female mathematicians who worked as human computers at the Langley Research Center of NACA (predecessor of NASA) from 1943 through 1958. These women were ...

. *

publishes a book about programming APE(X)C computers.

1959

Mary K. Hawes Mary K. Hawes was a computer scientist who identified the need for a common business language in accounting, which led to the development of COBOL. COBOL is short for Common Business Oriented Language. It was written to resemble ordinary English. F ...

convenes a meeting to discuss specifications for a business programming language. This would lead to the creation of

1961

Dana Ulery Dana Ulery (born January 2, 1938) is an American computer scientist and pioneer in scientific computing applications. Career Ulery received her BA from Grinnell College in 1959, with a double major in English Literature and Mathematics. She ear ...

was the first female engineer at

, developing real-time tracking systems using a North American Aviation Recomp II, a 40-bit word size computer.

1962

Jean E. Sammet Jean E. Sammet (March 23, 1928 – May 20, 2017) was an American computer scientist who developed the FORMAC programming language in 1962. She was also one of the developers of the influential COBOL programming language. She received her B.A. i ...

developed the FORMAC programming language. She was also the first to write extensively about the history and categorization of programming languages in 1969, and became the first female president of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

in 1974. * Dame Stephanie "Steve" Shirley founded the UK software company F.I. She was concerned with creating work opportunities for women with dependents, and predominantly employed women, only 3 out of 300-odd programmers were male, until that became illegal. She adopted the name "Steve" to help her in the male-dominated business world. From 1989 to 1990, she was president of the

British Computer Society Sir Maurice Wilkes served as the first President of BCS in 1957 BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, known as the British Computer Society until 2009, is a professional body and a learned society that represents those working in inf ...

. In 1985, she was awarded a Recognition of Information Technology Award.

1964

Joan Ball Joan Ball (born 1934) started the first computer dating service in England in 1964. Ball's computer dating service also pre-dated the earliest American computer dating services, like Operation Match at Harvard. Early life Joan Ball was born ...

was the first person to start a computer dating service in 1964. * Sharla Boehm performed pioneering work in

packet switching In telecommunications, packet switching is a method of grouping data into '' packets'' that are transmitted over a digital network. Packets are made of a header and a payload. Data in the header is used by networking hardware to direct the p ...

1965

* Mary Allen Wilkes was the first person to use a computer in a private home (in 1965) and the first developer of an operating system (LAP) for the first

minicomputer A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller general purpose computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold at a much lower price than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, ' ...

(

LINC The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit, 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the "Linc", suggesting the project's or ...

). *

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller Mary Kenneth Keller, B.V.M. (December 17, 1913 – January 10, 1985) was an American Catholic religious sister, educator and pioneer in computer science. She was the first person to earn a Ph.D. in computer science in the United States. Keller a ...

became the first American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1965. Her thesis was titled "Inductive Inference on Computer Generated Patterns".

1966

* Margaret R. Fox was appointed Chief of the Office of Computer Information in 1966, part of the Institute for Computer Science and Technology of NBS. She held the post until 1975. She was also actively involved in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and served as the first Secretary for the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS).

1968

Vera Molnár Vera Molnár (born 1924) is a Hungarian media artist living and working in France. Molnar is widely considered to be a pioneer of computer art and generative art, and is also one of the first women to use computers in her art practice. Born in ...

is one of the pioneers of computer and algorithmic arts. In 1968 she began working with computers, where she began to create algorithmic drawings based on simple geometric shapes geometrical themes.

1969

* Jean E.Sammet publishes ''Programming Languages: History and Fundamentals'', which was the standard in the field at the time. * Margaret Hamilton was in late 1960s Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for the Apollo space program. MIT work prevented an abort of the

Apollo 11 Apollo 11 (July 16–24, 1969) was the American spaceflight that first landed humans on the Moon. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module ''Eagle'' on July 20, 1969, at 20:17 UTC, ...

moon landing by using robust architecture

Later, she was awarded the NASA Exceptional Space Act Award for her scientific and technical contributions.NASA Press Releas
"NASA Honors Apollo Engineer"
(3 September 2003)''Michael Braukus'' NASA New

(3 September 2003) *

Alexandra Illmer Forsythe Alexandra Winifred Illmer Forsythe (May 20, 1918 – January 2, 1980) was an American computer scientist best known for co-authoring a series of computer science textbooks during the 1960s and 1970s, including the first ever computer science text ...

is a co-author of the first computer science

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

, ''Computer Science: A First Course'' (Wiley & Sons).

1970

* Drude Berntsen is appointed director of the

Norwegian Computing Center Norwegian Computing Center (NR, in Norwegian: ''Norsk Regnesentral'') is a private, independent, non-profit research foundation founded in 1952. NR carries out contract research and development in the areas of computing and quantitative methods fo ...

1971

Erna Schneider Hoover Erna Schneider Hoover (born June 19, 1926) is an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which "revolutionized modern communication" according to several reports. It prevented system overloads by mon ...

is an American mathematician notable for inventing a computerized telephone switching method which developed modern communication according to several reports. At Bell Laboratories, where she worked for over 32 years, Hoover was described as an important pioneer for women in the field of computer technology. * Margaret Burnett became the first woman software developer ever hired by Procter & Gamble/Ivorydale, a 13,000-employee complex that included their R&D center. Her position as a software developer also made her the first woman ever hired into a management-level position there.

1972

* Mary Shaw became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in Computer Science from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. * Adele Goldberg was one of developers of the

Smalltalk Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed reflective programming language. It was designed and created in part for educational use, specifically for constructionist learning, at the Learning Research Group (LRG) of Xerox PARC by Alan ...

language. *

Karen Spärck Jones Karen Sparck Jones is a computer science researcher and innovator who pioneered the search engine algorithm known as inverse document frequency (IDF). While many early information scientists and computer engineers were focused on developing progr ...

was one of the pioneers of information retrieval and natural language processing. * Sandra Kurtzig founded ASK Computer Systems, an early Silicon Valley startup, on a $20,000 budget.

1973

* Susan Nycum co-authored ''Computer Abuse'', a minor classic that was one of the first studies to define and document computer-related crime. * Phyllis Fox worked on the PORT portable mathematical/numerical library.

1974

Elizabeth Feinler Elizabeth Jocelyn "Jake" Feinler (born March 2, 1931) is an American information scientist. From 1972 until 1989 she was director of the Network Information Systems Center at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI International). Her group operate ...

and her team defined a simple text file format for Internet host names. The list evolved into the

Domain Name System The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned t ...

and her group became the naming authority for the top-level domains of .mil, .gov, .edu, .org, and .com.

1975

Irene Greif Irene Greif is an American computer scientist and a founder of the field of computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW). She was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Biography Greif's ...

became the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

. *Indian computer scientist

Sudha Murthy Sudha Murty (' Kulkarni; born 19 August 1951) is an Indian educator, author and philanthropist who is chairperson of the Infosys F ...

is hired as first woman to work for TELCO as an engineer.

1976

Rózsa Péter Rózsa Péter, born Rózsa Politzer, (17 February 1905 – 16 February 1977) was a Hungarian mathematician and logician. She is best known as the "founding mother of recursion theory". Early life and education Péter was born in Budapest, ...

publishes ''Recursive Functions in Computer Theory'', a topic she had been working on since the 1950s.

1978

Sophie Wilson Sophie Mary Wilson (born Roger Wilson; June 1957) is an English computer scientist, who helped design the BBC Micro and ARM architecture. Wilson first designed a microcomputer during a break from studies at Selwyn College, Cambridge. She ...

is a British computer scientist. She is known for designing the Acorn Micro-Computer, as well as the instruction set of the

ARM processor ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...

. *The

Association for Women in Computing The Association for Women in Computing (AWC) is a professional organization for women in computing. It was founded in 1978 in Washington, D.C., and is a member of the Institute for Certification of Computing Professionals (ICCP). Purpose The pur ...

(AWC) is founded. *

Christiane Floyd Christiane Floyd (née Riedl; born 26 April 1943) is an Austrian computer scientist. In 1978, she became the first female professor of computer science in Germany, and was a pioneer of evolutionary participatory software design—a precursor to ...

becomes the first woman to work as a computer science professor in Germany.

1979

Lynn Conway Lynn Ann Conway (born January 2, 1938) is an American computer scientist, electrical engineer and transgender activist. She worked at IBM in the 1960s and invented generalized dynamic instruction handling, a key advance used in out-of-order ...

co-authored ''Introduction to VLSI Systems'', a bestselling very-large-scale integration ( VLSI) design textbook that triggered the Mead and Conway revolution in integrated circuit design. * Patricia Selinger was one of the key architects of

IBM System R IBM System R is a database system built as a research project at IBM's San Jose Research Laboratory beginning in 1974. System R was a seminal project: it was the first implementation of SQL, which has since become the standard relational data ...

, and in 1979 wrote the canonical paper on relational query optimization. She was appointed an IBM Fellow in 1994, and an ACM Fellow in 2009. *

Carol Shaw Carol Shaw (born 1955) is one of the first female game designers and programmers in the video game industry. She is best known for creating the Atari 2600 vertically scrolling shooter ''River Raid'' (1982) for Activision. She worked for Atari, In ...

was a game designer and programmer for

Atari Corp. Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communica ...

and

Activision Activision Publishing, Inc. is an American video game publisher based in Santa Monica, California. It serves as the publishing business for its parent company, Activision Blizzard, and consists of several subsidiary studios. Activision is one ...

. *

Ruzena Bajcsy Ruzena Bajcsy (born 1933 in Bratislava, now Slovakia) is an American engineer and computer scientist who specializes in robotics. She is professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where sh ...

founds the General Robotics, Automation, Sensing and Perception (GRASP) lab at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

. * Priti Shankar does work with generalizing the Bose Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BHC) codes for error-correcting.

1980

Carla Meninsky Carla Meninsky is a former video game designer and programmer active during the early years of the Atari VCS. Along with Carol Shaw (creator of ''3-D Tic-Tac-Toe'' and ''River Raid''), Meninsky was one of three female engineers at Atari, Inc. to ...

was the game designer and programmer for

Atari 2600 The Atari 2600, initially branded as the Atari Video Computer System (Atari VCS) from its release until November 1982, is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocesso ...

games ''

Star Raiders ''Star Raiders'' is a first-person space combat simulator for the Atari 8-bit family of computers. It was written by Doug Neubauer, an Atari employee, and released as a cartridge by Atari in March 1980. The game is considered the platform's kil ...

'' and ''

Warlords A warlord is a person who exercises military, economic, and political control over a region in a country without a strong national government; largely because of coercive control over the armed forces. Warlords have existed throughout much of h ...

''. * Gwen Bell starts the

Computer Museum A computer museum is devoted to the study of historic computer hardware and software, where a "museum" is a "permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, com ...

to preserve artifacts of computer history. * Ruth M. Davis founds Pymatuning Group in Virginia.

1982

Lorinda Cherry Lorinda Cherry ( Landgraf; November 18, 1944 – February 2022) was an American computer scientist and programmer. Much of her career was spent at Bell Labs, where she was for many years a member of the original Unix Lab. Cherry developed severa ...

worked on the Writer's Workbench (wwb) for

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...

. * Marsha R. Williams becomes the first African American woman to earn a Ph.D. in computer science.

1983

* Janese Swanson (with others) developed the first of the ''

Carmen Sandiego ''Carmen Sandiego'' (sometimes referred to as ''Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego?'') is a media franchise based on a series of computer games created by the American software company Broderbund. While the original 1985 '' Where in the World ...

'' games. She went on to found Girl Tech. Girl Tech develops products and services that encourage girls to use new technologies, such as the Internet and video games.

1984

* Roberta Williams did pioneering work in graphical adventure games for

personal computers A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

, particularly the '' King's Quest'' series. * Susan Kare created the icons and many of the interface elements for the original

Apple Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software ...

in the 1980s, and was an original employee of

NeXT Next may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Next'' (1990 film), an animated short about William Shakespeare * ''Next'' (2007 film), a sci-fi film starring Nicolas Cage * '' Next: A Primer on Urban Painting'', a 2005 documentary film Lit ...

, working as the Creative Director. * Eleanor K. Baum becomes the first woman in the United States to be named dean of an engineering college.

1985

Radia Perlman Radia Joy Perlman (; born December 18, 1951) is an American computer programmer and network engineer. She is a major figure in assembling the networks and technology to enable what we now know as the internet. She is most famous for her inventi ...

invented the

Spanning Tree Protocol The Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is a network protocol that builds a loop-free logical topology for Ethernet networks. The basic function of STP is to prevent bridge loops and the broadcast radiation that results from them. Spanning tree also ...

. She has done extensive and innovative research, particularly on encryption and networking. She received the USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. *

was the first

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

CIO. * Janet Walker develops the Symbolics Document Examiner.

1986

Lixia Zhang Lixia Zhang () is the Jonathan B. Postel Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.. Her expertise is in computer networks; she helped found the Internet Engineering Task Force, designed the Resource Reservation ...

was the only woman at the initial meetings of the

Internet Engineering Task Force The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a standards organization for the Internet and is responsible for the technical standards that make up the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It has no formal membership roster or requirements an ...

. *

Nancy Hafkin Nancy Jane Hafkin is a pioneer of networking and development information and electronic communications in Africa, spurring the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) from 1 ...

heads the Pan African Development Information System.

1987

* Monica S. Lam receives a Ph.D. for her work on optimising compilers. She has since then performed influential research in many areas of computer science as well as co-authored a famous textbook on compilers. *

Anita Borg Anita Borg (January 17, 1949 – April 6, 2003) was an American computer scientist. She founded the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Education and early life Borg was born Anita Borg Naf ...

founds the

electronic mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...

for women in technology, Systers. *French computer scientist, Joëlle Coutaz develops the Presentation-abstraction-control model for human computer interactions.

1988

Éva Tardos Éva Tardos (born 1 October 1957) is a Hungarian mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Tardos's research interest is algorithms. Her work focuses on the design and analysis of efficient ...

, is the recipient of the

Fulkerson Prize The Fulkerson Prize for outstanding papers in the area of discrete mathematics is sponsored jointly by the Mathematical Optimization Society (MOS) and the American Mathematical Society (AMS). Up to three awards of $1,500 each are presented at e ...

for her research on design and

analysis of algorithms In computer science, the analysis of algorithms is the process of finding the computational complexity of algorithms—the amount of time, storage, or other resources needed to execute them. Usually, this involves determining a function that r ...

. * Janie Tsao co-founds

Linksys Linksys is an American brand of data networking hardware products mainly sold to home users and small businesses. It was founded in 1988 by the couple Victor and Janie Tsao, both Taiwanese immigrants to the United States. Linksys products in ...

1989

Frances E. Allen Frances Elizabeth Allen (August 4, 1932August 4, 2020) was an American computer scientist and pioneer in the field of optimizing compilers. Allen was the first woman to become an IBM Fellow, and in 2006 became the first woman to win the Turing ...

became the first female IBM Fellow in 1989. In 2006, she became the first female recipient of the ACM's

Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...

. * Frances Brazier, professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, is one of the founder of

NLnet The NLnet Foundation supports organizations and people that contribute to an open information society. It was influential in spreading the Internet throughout Europe in the 1980s. In 1997, the foundation sold off its commercial networking opera ...

, the first

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise priva ...

in the Netherlands.

1990

*Ruzena Bajcsy becomes the first woman to chair the computer and information science department at the University of Pennsylvania.

1992

Donna Dubinsky Donna Dubinsky is an American business leader who played an integral role in the development of personal digital assistants (PDAs) serving as CEO of Palm, Inc. and co-founding Handspring with Jeff Hawkins in 1995. Dubinsky co-founded Numenta in ...

CEO and co-founder of

Palm, Inc. Palm, Inc. was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and various other electronics. They were the designer of the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, as well as the Treo 6 ...

, co-founder of

Handspring Handspring may refer to: *Handspring (company), a company that made personal digital assistants *Handspring (gymnastics), a gymnastics move involving forward or backward rotation of the body *Rising handspring or nip-up A nip-up is an acrobatic ...

, co-founder of Numenta, Harvard Business School's Alumni Achievement Award winner for "introducing the first successful personal digital assistant (PDA) and who is now developing a computer memory system modeled after the human brain". *Nancy Rhine and Ellen Pack co-found the first online space targeting women, Women's WIRE. *

Carol Bartz Carol Ann Bartz (born August 28, 1948) is an American business executive, former president and CEO of the internet services company Yahoo!, and former chairman, president, and CEO at architectural and engineering design software company Autodesk. ...

becomes the CEO of

Autodesk Autodesk, Inc. is an American multinational software corporation that makes software products and services for the architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, media, education, and entertainment industries. Autodesk is headquartere ...

1993

Shafi Goldwasser en, Shafrira Goldwasser , name = Shafi Goldwasser , image = Shafi Goldwasser.JPG , caption = Shafi Goldwasser in 2010 , birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S. , birth_date = , death_date ...

, a theoretical computer scientist, is a two-time recipient of the

Gödel Prize The Gödel Prize is an annual prize for outstanding papers in the area of theoretical computer science, given jointly by the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science (EATCS) and the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interes ...

for research on complexity theory, cryptography and computational number theory, and the invention of zero-knowledge proofs. *

Barbara Liskov Barbara Liskov (born November 7, 1939 as Barbara Jane Huberman) is an American computer scientist who has made pioneering contributions to programming languages and distributed computing. Her notable work includes the development of the Liskov su ...

together with

Jeannette Wing Jeannette Marie Wing is Avanessians Director of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University, where she is also a professor of computer science. Until June 30, 2017, she was Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Research with oversight of i ...

, developed the

Liskov substitution principle The Liskov substitution principle (LSP) is a particular definition of a subtyping relation, called strong behavioral subtyping, that was initially introduced by Barbara Liskov in a 1988 conference keynote address titled ''Data abstraction and ...

. Liskov was also the winner of the Turing Prize in 2008. *Carolyn Gruyer writes feminist

hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically ...

, ''Quibbling''.

1994

Sally Floyd Sally Jean Floyd (May 20, 1950 – August 25, 2019) was an American computer scientist known for her work on computer networking. Formerly associated with the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California, she retired in 2009 a ...

, is known for her work on

Transmission Control Protocol The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is one of the main protocols of the Internet protocol suite. It originated in the initial network implementation in which it complemented the Internet Protocol (IP). Therefore, the entire suite is commonl ...

. *The

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. It is the world's largest gathering of women in computing. The celebra ...

is first launched by Anita Borg. *Hi-Pitched Voices, a collaborative

women's writing project is launched in the Hypertext Hotel. *On 20 April, Hu Qiheng lead the project that installed the first

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the su ...

connection to the Internet in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

1995

Mary Lou Jepsen Mary Lou Jepsen (born 1965) is a technical executive and inventor in the fields of display, imaging, and computer hardware. Her contributions have had worldwide adoption in head-mounted display, HDTV, laptop computers, and projector products; ...

is the CTO of MicroDisplay where she developed smaller computer screens. * Eleanor K. Baum is the first woman to be elected president of the

American Society for Engineering Education The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a non-profit member association, founded in 1893, dedicated to promoting and improving engineering and engineering technology education. The purpose of ASEE is the advancement of education ...

1996

Xiaoyuan Tu Xiaoyuan Tu (born 1967) is a Chinese researcher and computer scientist specializing in machine learning, behavior modeling, physics modeling, biomechanical modeling, motion control interfaces, and intelligent virtual characters. She holds a Ph.D ...

was the first female recipient of ACM's Doctoral Dissertation Award.

1997

, was the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT), renamed Anita Borg Institute (ABI) in her honor in 2003. *Japanese-born Chieko Asakawa develops the IBM Home Page Reader opening up Web resources to the blind. *

Natalya Kaspersky Natalya Ivanovna Kasperskaya (russian: Наталья Ивановна Касперская; born 5 February 1966 in Moscow, Soviet Union)—who, in the West, uses as her surname the masculine form ''Kaspersky''—is a Russian IT entrepreneur ...

co-founds and heads the highly successful antivirus software company

Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Lab (; Russian: Лаборатория Касперского, tr. ''Laboratoriya Kasperskogo'') is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company i ...

. * Manuela Veloso is awarded the CMU Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research.

1998

* The Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) is established at the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a public research university in Baltimore County, Maryland. It has a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 undergraduate majors, over 92 graduate programs (38 master, 25 doctoral, ...

(UMBC). *

Meg Whitman Margaret Cushing Whitman (born August 4, 1956) is the US ambassador to Kenya, an American business executive and former gubernatorial candidate for California. She is a board member of Procter & Gamble and General Motors. Whitman was previously ...

becomes the CEO of

eBay eBay Inc. ( ) is an American multinational e-commerce company based in San Jose, California, that facilitates consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer sales through its website. eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar in 1995 and became ...

1999

LinuxChix LinuxChix is a women-oriented Linux community. It was formed to provide both technical and social support for women Linux users, although men are encouraged to contribute. Members of the community are referred to as "a Linux chick" (singular) and " ...

, an international organization for women who use Linux and women and men who want to support women in computing, was founded by Deb Richardson. *

Marissa Mayer Marissa Ann Mayer (; born May 30, 1975) is an American businesswoman and investor. She is an information technology executive, and co-founder of Sunshine Contacts. Mayer formerly served as the president and chief executive officer of Yahoo!, a p ...

, was the first female engineer hired at Google, and was later named vice president of Search Product and User Experience. She was formerly the CEO of

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Mana ...

. *

coined the term, "

middlebox A middlebox is a computer networking device that transforms, inspects, filters, and manipulates traffic for purposes other than packet forwarding. Examples of middleboxes include firewalls, network address translators (NATs), load balancers, and ...

". *

Carly Fiorina Cara Carleton "Carly" Fiorina (''née'' Sneed; born September 6, 1954) is an American businesswoman and politician, known primarily for her tenure as CEO of Hewlett-Packard (HP). As chief executive officer of HP from 1999 to 2005, Fiorina was ...

starts as the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. * Sun Yafeng starts as the chair of

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various sma ...

Technologies Board.

21st century

2000

Lydia Kavraki Lydia E. Kavraki ( el, Λύδια Καβράκη) is a Greek-American computer scientist, the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science, a professor of bioengineering, electrical and computer engineering, and mechanical engineering at Rice Unive ...

is awarded the

Grace Murray Hopper Award The Grace Murray Hopper Award (named for computer pioneer RADM Grace Hopper) has been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1971. The award goes to a computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or ser ...

2001

Noriko H. Arai Noriko H. Arai ( ja, 新井紀子, born 1962) is a Japanese researcher in mathematical logic and artificial intelligence, known for her work on a project to develop robots that can pass the entrance examinations for the University of Tokyo. She is ...

started developing NetCommons which is used for content management at over 3,500 educational institutions.

2003

Ellen Spertus Ellen R. Spertus is an American Computer Scientist who is currently the Elinor Kilgore Snyder Professor of computer science at Mills College, Oakland, California, and a former senior research scientist at Google. Early life and education Spertu ...

earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 1998 with the notable thesis "ParaSite: Mining the structural information on the World-Wide Web". * Margaret Hamilton received the NASA Exceptional Space Act Award. * Sue Black starts her campaign to preserve

2004

Jeri Ellsworth Jeri Janet Ellsworth (born August 14, 1974) is an American entrepreneur, computer chip designer and inventor. She gained fame in 2004 for creating a complete Commodore 64 emulator system on a chip housed within a joystick, called Commodore 30- ...

is a self-taught computer chip designer and creator of the

C64 Direct-to-TV The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick (modeled after the mid-1980s Competition Pro joystick), with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the Atar ...

. *

Lucy Sanders Lucinda "Lucy" Sanders (born 1954) is the current CEO and a co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology. She is the recipient of many distinguished honors in the STEM fields, including induction into the US News STEM Lea ...

co-founded the

National Center for Women & Information Technology The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that works to increase the meaningful participation of girls and women in computing. NCWIT was founded in 2004 by Lucinda (Lucy) Sanders, Dr. Te ...

Safra Catz Safra Ada Catz ( he, צפרא עדה כץ; born December 1, 1961) is an American billionaire banker and technology executive. She is the CEO of Oracle Corporation. She has been an executive at Oracle since April 1999, and a board member since 20 ...

becomes the President of

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

2005

Audrey Tang Audrey Tang ( zh, t=唐鳳, p=Táng Fèng; born 18 April 1981) is a Taiwanese free software programmer and the inaugural Minister of Digital Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan), who has been described as one of the "ten greatest Taiwanese ...

is the initiator and leader of the Pugs project. *

is the founder and chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), and the founder of Pixel Qi. *

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

hires their first woman engineer,

Ruchi Sanghvi Ruchi Sanghvi (born 20 January 1982) is an Indian computer engineer and businesswoman. She was the first female engineer hired by Facebook. In late 2010, she quit Facebook and in 2011, she started her own company Cove, with two other co-foun ...

. *

Xiaoyun Wang Wang Xiaoyun (; born 1966) is a Chinese cryptographer, mathematician, and computer scientist. She is a professor in the Department of Mathematics and System Science of Shandong University and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Ear ...

and her team crack the

SHA-1 In cryptography, SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographically broken but still widely used hash function which takes an input and produces a 160- bit (20- byte) hash value known as a message digest – typically rendered as 40 hexa ...

data security algorithm.

2006

Maria Klawe Maria Margaret Klawe ( ; born 1951) is a computer scientist and the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College (since July 1, 2006). Born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of En ...

is the first woman to become president of the

Harvey Mudd College Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private college in Claremont, California, focused on science and engineering. It is part of the Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds and resources. The college enrolls 902 undergraduate students ...

since its founding in 1955 and was ACM president from 2002 until 2004. * Melanie Rieback's research concerns the security and privacy of Radio Frequency Identification (

RFID Radio-frequency identification (RFID) uses electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags attached to objects. An RFID system consists of a tiny radio transponder, a radio receiver and transmitter. When triggered by an electromag ...

) technology, she is known to have programmed the first virus to infect RFID devices. *

Joanna Rutkowska Joanna Rutkowska (born 1981 in Warsaw) is a Polish computer security researcher, primarily known for her research on low-level security and stealth malware, and as founder of the Qubes OS security-focused desktop operating system. She became ...

presented Blue Pill, a

rootkit A rootkit is a collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to enable access to a computer or an area of its software that is not otherwise allowed (for example, to an unauthorized user) and often masks its existence or the exis ...

based on

x86 virtualization x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU. In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-a ...

, at the

Black Hat Briefings Black Hat Briefings (commonly referred to as Black Hat) is a computer security conference that provides security consulting, training, and briefings to hackers, corporations, and government agencies around the world. Black Hat brings together ...

computer security conference A computer security conference is a convention for individuals involved in computer security. They generally serve as meeting places for system and network administrators, hackers, and computer security experts. Events Common activities at hacke ...

. *In January, Janet Emerson Bashen, became the first African American woman to hold a patent for a software invention. * Frances "Fran" Allen becomes the first woman to earn an A.M. Turing Award. * Sophie Vandebroek becomes the Chief Technology Officer for

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (having moved from St ...

. * Anne-Marie Kermarrec starts as the Research Director for L'Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (

INRIA The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...

). *

Yoelle Maarek Yoelle Maarek is a Tunisian-born Israeli computer scientist. She is the Vice President of Worldwide Research at Amazon,Meral Özsoyoğlu become the editor-in-chief of the ''ACM Transactions of Database Systems'' and is the first woman to hold that position.

2008

*Portuguese-born

Carla Gomes Carla Pedro Gomes is a Portuguese-American computer scientist and professor at Cornell University. She is the founding Director of the Institute for Computational Sustainability and is noted for her pioneering work in developing computational met ...

founds and directs Cornell's

Institute for Computational Sustainability The Institute for Computational Sustainability (ICS), founded in 2008 with support from an Expeditions in Computing grantBarbara Liskov Barbara Liskov (born November 7, 1939 as Barbara Jane Huberman) is an American computer scientist who has made pioneering contributions to programming languages and distributed computing. Her notable work includes the development of the Liskov su ...

is the winner of the 2008 A.M. Turing Award. *The British Computer Society Information Retrieval Specialist Group (BCS IRSG) and the

(BCS) create an award in the name of computer scientist,

2009

is awarded an

IEEE Internet Award IEEE Internet Award is a Technical Field Award established by the IEEE in June 1999. The award is sponsored by Nokia Corporation. It may be presented annually to an individual or up to three recipients, for exceptional contributions to the adv ...

for her "contributions towards developing the Internet's architecture." *

joins

as CEO. * Maria Petrou starts as the director of the Informatics and Telematics Institute at Greece's Centre for Research and Technology (CERTH).

2010

* Farida Bedwei co-founds Logiciel in

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...

2011

PyLadies PyLadies is an international mentorship group which focuses on helping more women become active participants in the Python open-source community. It is part of the Python Software Foundation. It was started in Los Angeles in 2011. The mission of ...

, an international organization of women interested in coding Python, is started in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. *

becomes CEO of Hewlett-Packard. * Bettina Speckmann is the first winner of the Netherlands Prize for ICT Research where she was recognized for her work on geographic information systems. *

is the Program director for the artificial intelligence challenge: "Can a robot get into the University of Tokyo?" * Shikoh Gitau is awarded the Google Anita Borg Award, becoming the first person to earn a Google award in

Sub Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

2012

is a co-recipient of the A.M. Turing Award. *

Pixelles Pixelles, located in Montreal, is a non-profit grassroots organization devoted to increasing gender diversity in video game design as a response to issues of sexism in video gaming. History The debut of the Pixelles in Montreal coincided with th ...

hosts their first game-programming incubator in

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

. *Computer scientist,

Muffy Calder Dame Muffy Calder (née Thomas; born 21 May 1958) is a Canadian-born British computer scientist, Vice-Principal and Head of College of Science and Engineering, and Professor of Formal Methods at the University of Glasgow. From 2012 to 2015 she ...

, starts as the Chief Scientific Advisor for the Scottish Government. *

Ginni Rometty Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty (born July 29, 1957) is an American business executive who served as executive chairman of IBM after stepping down as CEO on April 1, 2020. She previously served as chairman, president and CEO of IBM, becoming the ...

becomes the first woman to serve as president and CEO of IBM. * Eva Tardos earns the

. *

Regina Honu Regina Honu (née Agyare), is a Ghanaian social Entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and Human-centered design school for chi ...

founds Soronko Solutions, a software development company in 2012. * Carol Reiley is the first woman engineer to be featured on the cover of ''MAKE'' magazine. *Nigerian Women In Information Technology (NiWIIT) was created as an interest group of the Nigeria Computer Society to empower and encourage women working in the field of Information and Communication Technologies.

2013

*''

TIME Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

'' names Afghani software developer, Roya Mahboob, one of the 100 most influential people of the year. * Christine Paulin-Mohring is awarded the

ACM Software System Award The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both". It is awarded b ...

for her work on Coq Proof Assistant System.

2014

Megan Smith Megan J. Smith (born October 21, 1964) is an American engineer and technologist. She was the third Chief Technology Officer of the United States (U.S. CTO) and Assistant to the President, serving under President Barack Obama. She was previously a ...

named third (and first female) Chief Technology Officer of the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

( USCTO), succeeding Todd Park. *

Coraline Ada Ehmke Coraline Ada Ehmke is an American software developer and open source advocate based in Chicago, Illinois. She began her career as a web developer in 1994 and has worked in a variety of industries, including engineering, consulting, education, ...

drafts the first

code of conduct A code of conduct is a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization. Companies' codes of conduct A company code of conduct is a set of rules which is commonly writt ...

for

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

projects, the

Contributor Covenant The Contributor Covenant is a code of conduct for contributors to Free and open-source software, free/open source software projects, created by Coraline Ada Ehmke. Its stated purpose is to reduce harassment of minority, LGBT and otherwise underrepr ...

. *Perianne Boring founded the trade organization and advocacy group

Chamber of Digital Commerce The Chamber of Digital Commerce is an American advocacy group that promotes the emerging industry behind blockchain technology, bitcoin, digital currency and digital assets. History Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the organization was founde ...

in July. *In August, the first Pan-African Women in Tech conference took place online.

2015

* Sarah Sharp is the first winner of the annual Women in Open Source Community Award, awarded by

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become a ...

. * Kesha Shah is the first winner of the annual Women in Open Source Academic Award, awarded by

. * Gillian Docherty becomes the new CEO of the DataLab in Scotland.

2016

becomes "digital minister" in Taiwan. *

Kate Devlin Kate Devlin, born Adela Katharine Devlin is a Northern Irish computer scientist specialising in Artificial intelligence and Human–computer interaction (HCI). She is best known for her work on human sexuality and robotics and was co-chair of t ...

co-organizes the first "sex-tech hackathon" in the UK. *

Maja Matarić Maja Matarić is an American computer scientist, roboticist and AI researcher, and the Chan Soon-Shiong Distinguished Professor of Computer Science, Neuroscience, and Pediatrics at the University of Southern California. She is known for her wo ...

co-founds Embodied Robotics. Regina_Honu_01

2017

Michelle Simmons Michelle Yvonne Simmons, (born 14 July 1967) is a Scientia Professor of Quantum Physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of New South Wales and has twice been an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow and is an Australian Res ...

founds the first

quantum computer Quantum computing is a type of computation whose operations can harness the phenomena of quantum mechanics, such as superposition, interference, and entanglement. Devices that perform quantum computations are known as quantum computers. Thoug ...

company in Australia. *

opens Soronko Academy, the first coding and "human centered design school" for both children and teens in West Africa.

2018

* Dame Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight was appointed a Knight of the St. Sava Order of Diplomatic Pacifism for her work on

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

. *

Gladys West Gladys Mae West (née Brown; born October 27, 1930) is an American mathematician known for her contributions to the mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, and her work on the development of the satellite geodesy models that were even ...

, a human computer whose calculations helped develop GPS technology, is recognized for her work in December when she is inducted into the Air Force Space and Missile Pioneers Hall of Fame. * Safiya Umoja Noble publishes Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism, arguing that search algorithms are racist and perpetuate societal problems. *- Joy Buolamwini publishes Gender Shades: Intersectional Accuracy Disparities in Commercial Gender Classification, exposing biases in facial recognition systems.

References

Sources

* * * * * {{Timelines of computing Computing timelines

computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, ...