Phyllis Ann Fox (born March 13, 1923) is an American mathematician and computer scientist.

Early life and education

Fox was raised in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. She did her undergraduate studies at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

, earning a B.A. in mathematics in 1944. From 1944 until 1946 she worked for

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

as an operator for their

differential analyser 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 ...

project. She earned a second baccalaureate, a B.S. in electrical engineering, from the

University of Colorado The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University of Co ...

in 1948. She then moved on to graduate studies at 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 the ...

, earning an M.S. in 1949 in electrical engineering, and a doctorate (Sc.D.) in mathematics in 1954 under the supervision of

Chia-Chiao Lin Chia-Chiao Lin (; 7 July 1916 – 13 January 2013) was a Chinese-born American applied mathematician and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Lin made major contributions to the theory of hydrodynamic stability, ...

. During this time, she also worked as an assistant on the

Whirlwind A whirlwind is a weather phenomenon in which a vortex of wind (a vertically oriented rotating column of air) forms due to instabilities and turbulence created by heating and flow (current) gradients. Whirlwinds occur all over the world and ...

project at MIT, under

Jay Forrester Jay Wright Forrester (July 14, 1918 – November 16, 2016) was a pioneering American computer engineer and systems scientist. He is credited with being one of the inventors of magnetic core memory, the predominant form of random-access computer ...

Later career

From 1954 to 1958, Fox worked on the numerical solution of

partial differential equations In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be solved for, similarly to ...

on the

Univac UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company an ...

, for the Computing Center of the

United States Atomic Energy Commission The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President H ...

at the

Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences (commonly known as Courant or CIMS) is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU), and is among the most prestigious mathematics schools and mathematical sciences research cente ...

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. In 1958, following her husband, she returned to Forester's

system dynamics System dynamics (SD) is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and time delays. Overview System dynamics is a methodology and mathematical ...

research group at MIT, where she became part of the team that wrote the DYNAMO programming language.Resume and brief autobiography for Phyllis Fox, for Wellesley College Class of 1944 Record Book, Jan 1974, SIAM history websit

She then became a collaborator on the first

LISP A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...

interpreter, and the principal author of the first LISP manual. In 1963, she moved from MIT to the

Newark College of Engineering {{Infobox university , name = {{nowrap, New Jersey Institute of Technology , image = New Jersey IT seal.svg , image_upright = 0.9 , former_names = Newark College of Engineering (1930–1975)Ne ...

, where she became a full professor in 1972. During this time, she also consulted 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 mult ...

, where she moved in 1973 to work on a highly portable numerics library (PORT). She retired from Bell Labs in 1984.

Recognition

Fox was named a Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

in 1986.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Phyllis 1923 births American computer scientists Artificial intelligence researchers Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni History of artificial intelligence Lisp (programming language) people Programming language designers Wellesley College alumni University of Colorado alumni New Jersey Institute of Technology faculty Numerical analysts American women computer scientists Women mathematicians Living people Scientists at Bell Labs MIT School of Engineering alumni Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science American women academics 21st-century American women