Profiles of Technical Women: Famous Women in Computer Science

The Anita Borg Institute is proud to introduce  – Famous Women in Computer Science.  This list was compiled by our Advisory Board Awards Committee:  Katy Dickinson (Director, Huawei Technologies), Fran Allen (IBM Emerita and 2006 Turing Award Winner), Dr. Chandra Krintz, (Professor, Computer Science Department, University of California at Santa Barbara) and Dr. Robert Walker (Director of Digital Sciences and Professor of Computer Science, Kent State University). The women on this list are leaders in Computer Science and recognized by their peers and the technology industry through major awards and other public acknowledgements of excellence.

The ultimate goal of this list is to encourage our readers to:

  • Navigate the Anita Borg Institute awards web sites
  • Identify women with award-winning potential
  • Encourage those who want to understand their own potential for promotion, honors, and awards
  • Organize and inform a nomination or promotion

Awards and other honors often go begging for lack of good nominations. A great woman is often overlooked because no one mentioned her name or took the time to build her case. Increased focus is needed on awards going to great technical women at every stage in their careers.

Criteria for inclusion:

  • Must be a woman working in Computer Science with a remarkable history both of success and of public acknowledgment beyond her home organization.
  • A pioneer or originator of technology: we recognize such women often receive delayed public recognition.
  • A CTO, CEO, President, or founder of a technical company who is a technical woman will also be recognized.

This list is incomplete and growing.  If you have a suggestion for this list please let us know at information@anitaborg.org.

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Famous Women in Computer Science

  • Frances E. Allen, 1st female IBM Fellow, 1st female recipient of ACM’s A. M. Turing Award 2006, WITI Hall of Fame 1997, IEEE Fellow 1991, ACM Fellow 1994
  • Betsy Ancker-Johnson, 1st observation of microwave emission without the presence of an external field (1967), Fellow American Physical Society, Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow Society of Automotive Engineers, IEEE Fellow 1975, Member National Academy of Engineering
  • Anousheh Ansari, Co-founder and Chair of Prodea Systems. Co-founder and CEO of Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI). 1st Iranian in space. George Mason University Entrepreneurial Excellence Award, George Washington University Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award, Horatio Alger Award, 2010 Ellis Island Medal of Honor
  • Ruzena Bajcsy, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, Director Emerita of CITRIS (the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Science), Member National Academy of Engineering, Member National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, Fellow ACM 1996,Fellow IEEE 1992, Fellow American Association for Artificial Intelligence, Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award (2010)
  • Carol Bartz, President and CEO of Yahoo! (2009-2011), previouslyChairman, President, and CEO at Autodesk (1992-2009), WITI Hall of Fame 1997
  • Marsha Berger, Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute – New York University, interdisciplinary research deals in scientific computing with an application to fluid dynamics. 2000 Member National Academy of Sciences, 2004 Sidney Fernbach Award Recipient, NASA Software of the Year Award, the NYU Sokol Faculty Award in the Sciences, the NSF Faculty Award for Women, and the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award
  • Fran Berman, Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, ACM Fellow 2000, inaugural recipient of the ACM/IEEE-CS Ken Kennedy Award for “influential leadership in the design, development, and deployment of national-scale cyberinfrastructure” 2009, Former Professor in the UC San Diego Department of Computer Science and Engineering, 2001-2009 Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC). Recognized by the Library of Congress as a “Digital Preservation Pioneer”.
  • Lenore Blum, Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
  • Anita Borg, founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT), which became the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), EFF Pioneer Award 1995, WITI Hall of Fame 1998, ACM Fellow 1996
  • Cynthia Breazeal, pioneer of social robotics at MIT Media Lab, US Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigators Award
  • Ursula Burns, Chairman and CEO of Xerox (2009-present), Vice-Chair of the US President’s Export Council
  • Safra A. Catz, President Oracle Corporation since 2004, CFO Oracle (2005-2008, again since 2011), Member Oracle Board since 2001
  • Lynn Conway, Mead & Conway revolution in VLSI design, invention of generalized dynamic instruction handling, IEEE Fellow 1985, Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award 1990
  • Weili Dai, Co-founder in 1995 Marvell Technology Group (semiconductor company), now Marvell’s Vice President and General Manager of Communications and Consumer Business
  • Ruth Davis, Santa Clara University Professor, IEEE Senior Member 1993, ACM Distinguished Member 2006
  • Denice Denton, University of California at Santa Cruz Chancellor 2005-2006, AAAS Fellow, IEEE Fellow 2004, honored in the naming of the ABI “Denice Dentor Emerging Leader Award”
  • Susan Dumais, leadership in bridging the fields of information retrieval and human computer interaction, ACM Fellow 2006, ACM SIGIR Salton Award 2009-lifetime achievement in IR
  • Cynthia Dwork, Distinguished scientist at Microsoft Research who works on distributed computing, cryptography, and e-mail spam prevention, Dijkstra Prize 2007, Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) 2008, Member National Academy of Engineering 2008
  • Susan Eggers, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering – University of Washington, co-developed the first commercially viable multithreaded architecture: Simultaneous Multithreading, Fellow IEEE 2003, ACM Fellow 2002, winner of the 2010 ISCA “test-of-time” award, 1989 IBM Faculty Development Award, 1990 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, 1994 Microsoft Professorship in Computer Science and Engineering, 2009 the ACM-W Athena Lecturer, Member of the National Academy of Engineering.
  • Deborah Estrin, Professor of Computer Science UCLA, pioneer in the field of embedded network sensing and is the director of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing (CENS) at UCLA, Fellow IEEE 2004, ACM Fellow 2000, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2007 Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award for Innovation, WITI Hall of Fame 2008
  • Carly Fiorina, CEO Hewlett-Packard 1999-2005
  • Adele Goldberg, co-developer of Smalltalk at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, ACM President 1984, ACM Fellow 1994, WITI Hall of Fame 2010
  • Adele Goldstine, authored the Manual for the ENIAC in 1946
  • Shafi Goldwasser, RSA Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and of computer science and applied mathematics at Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award 1996
  • Susan Graham, Pehong Chen Distinguished Professor, Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley, ACM Fellow 1994, Member National Academy of Engineering, Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Founding editor-in-chief of the ACM Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems. ACM SIGPLAN Career Programming Language Achievement Award (2000), ACM Distinguished Service Award (2006), Harvard Medal (2008), IEEE von Neumann Medal (2009), Berkeley Citation (2009)
  • Diane Greene, VMWare co-founder and CEO (1998-2008)
  • Irene Greif, IBM Fellow, 1st woman to earn a PhD in computer science at MIT, MIT Professor of electrical engineering and computer science, ACM Fellow, Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, WITI Hall of Fame 2000
  • Helen Greiner, 1990-2008 Co-founder, Board Chair of iRobot, Anita Borg Institute Woman of Vision – Innovation award winner 2008, WITI Hall of Fame 2007
  • Laura Haas, IBM Fellow and Director, Institute for Massive Data, Analytics and ModelingAlmaden Research Center, ACM Fellow 2006, ACM SIGMOD Outstanding Contribution Award. 2010 ABI Technical Leadership Award. Member of the National Academy of Engineering, Vice-Chair of the board of the Computing Research Association
  • Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science, University of Southampton, UK, 2008 ACM President, 2009 Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), 2009 elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), ACM Fellow 2010
  • Grete Hermann published the foundational paper for computerized algebra
  • Erna Schneider Hoover, as a researcher at Bell Laboratories, created a computerized switching system for telephone call traffic and earned one of the 1st software patents ever issued (1971), 1st first female supervisor of a technical department at Bell Labs
  • Grace Murray Hopper, developed the 1st compiler for a computer programming language, US Navy Rear Admiral, in 1973 became the 1st person from the USA and the 1st woman of any nationality to be made a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society, IEEE Fellow 1962 (1st woman awarded), Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award 1964
  • Mary Jane Irwin, Evan Pugh Professorship Pennsylvania State University, ACM Distinguished Service Award, IEEE Fellow 1994, ACM Fellow 1996, National Academy of Engineering member 2003, 2005 ACM Distinguished Service Award, 2006 Computing Research Association Distinguished Service Award, 2007 Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award, American Academy of Arts and Sciences member 2009
  • Leah Jamieson, Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award – Social Impact 2007, IEEE Fellow 1993, Purdue University Dean of Engineering, IEEE President 2007
  • Mary Lou Jepsen, Founding Chief Technology Officer of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) 2005-2008, Founder and Chief Executive Officer Pixel Qi 2008-present, WITI Hall of Fame 2008, ABI Women of Vision award for Innovation, 2011
  • Katherine Johnson, research mathematician and scientist who worked at NASA’s Langley Research Center 1953 to 1986, calculated the trajectory of the early space launches
  • Kristina Johnson, optoelectronic processing systems and liquid crystal devices, IEEE Fellow 2003, ABI Women of Vision Award for Leadership 2010, US Under Secretary for Energy 2009-2010, SWE Achievement Award 2004
  • Anita Katherine Jones, Director, U.S. Defense Research and Engineering 1993-1997, Augusta Ada Lovelace Award: Association of Women in Computing 2004, Computing Research Association’s Service Award, U.S. Air Force Meritorious Civilian Service Award, U.S. Department of Defense Award for Distinguished Public Service. The U.S. Navy has named a seamount in the North Pacific Ocean (51° 25’ N and 159° 10’ W) for her, Member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Council on Foreign Relations, Fellow IEEE 1997, ACM Fellow 1996
  • Karen Spärck Jones, pioneer of the science behind information retrieval, ACM SIGIR Salton Award 1988, BCS Lovelace Medal 2007, the ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award 2007
  • Sister Mary Kenneth Keller is thought to be the first woman to earn a Ph.D. degree in computer science. Sister Keller entered the Catholic religious order, Sisters of Charity in 1932. Her 1965 Ph.D. degree degree in computer science was from the University of Wisconsin. At Dartmouth, she contributed to the development of BASIC. She founded the Computer Science Department Clarke College in Dubuque, Iowa and acted as its chair for 20 years. Sister Keller authored four books on computer science.
  • Augusta Ada King (Countess of Lovelace), 1843 wrote a description of Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. She is credited with being the 1st computer programmer.
  • Maria Klawe, 5th president of Harvey Mudd College (1st woman in that role) since 2006, previously Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University, 2002 ACM President, ACM Fellow 1996, Canadian Information Processing Society founding Fellow 2006
  • Sandra Kurtzig, founder and CEO of ASK computers (1972-1991)
  • Hedy Lamarr, co-invention of spread-spectrum broadcast communications technologies 1940, EFF Special Pioneer Award 1997
  • Susan Landau, Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer, Anita Borg Institute Woman of Vision – Social Impact award winner 2008, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, Association for Computing Machinery Fellow 2011,
  • Duy-Loan Le, Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments (1st woman and 1st Asian-American TI Senior Fellow), WITI Hall of Fame 2001, Vietnamese American National Gala Golden Torch Award 2006, ABI Women of Vision Award for Leadership 2007, helped establish the Sunflower Mission, a non-profit educational organization for poor children of Vietnam
  • Henrietta Swan Leavitt, in 1893, joined the Harvard computers, a group of women engaged in the production of astronomical data at Harvard; she was instrumental in discovery of the cepheid variable stars, which were evidence for the expansion of the universe.
  • Barbara H. Liskov, Ford Professor of Engineering in the MIT School of Engineering’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department, Society of Women Engineers Achievement Award 1996, IEEE John von Neumann Medal 2004, 2nd woman to win ACM’s A. M. Turing Award 2008, 1st US woman to be awarded a PhD from a computer science department in 1968, ACM Fellow 1996, SWE Achievement Award 1996
  • Prof. Nancy Lynch, Professor Massachusetts Institute of Technology: NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering in the EECS department and heads the Theory of Distributed Systems research group at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, ACM Fellow 1997, Dijkstra Prize 2007, Member National Academy of Engineering
  • Kay McNulty, Betty Snyder, Marlyn Wescoff, Ruth Lichterman, Betty Jennings, and Fran Bilas, original programmers of the ENIAC starting in 1946, WITI Hall of Fame 1997
  • Evi Nemeth, Associate Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Co-author of the best-selling UNIX System Administration Handbook (Prentice Hall, 1995)
  • Ellen Ochoa, Dr. Ochoa has logged over 978 hours in space, earning the US Distinguished Service Medal, Exceptional Service Medal, Outstanding Leadership Medal, and four NASA Space Flight Medals. 1st Hispanic woman in space. She designed optical systems for Sandia National Laboratory and at NASA’s Ames Research Center developed computer systems designed for aeronautical expeditions. Deputy Director of the Johnson Space Center (Houston, TX)
  • Radia Perlman, the “Mother of the Internet,” 1st Sun Microsystems female Fellow, 1st Anita Borg Institute Woman of Vision – Innovation award winner 2005, IEEE Fellow 2008
  • Linda Petzold, Professor Mechanical & Environmental Engineering UC Santa Barbara, Leader UCSB Computational Science and Engineering Research Group, ACM Fellow 2011, UCSB Faculty Research Lecturer 2011, Fellow ASME 2008, Fellow AAAS 2005, Member National Academy of Engineering 2004
  • Rosalind W. Picard, credited with starting the entire field of Affective Computing, MIT Director of Affective Computing Research, IEEE Fellow 2005
  • Martha Pollack, Vice Provost for Academic and Budgetary Affairs, and Professor of Information, and Professor of Computer Science & Engineering: University of Michigan, Served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, as President of AAAI ACM Fellow 2011, Fellow AAAS 2012, Elected Fellow American Association for Artificial Intelligence 1996, National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award 1992
  • Ginni Rometty, 1st woman President and CEO of IBM (2012-present)
  • Daniela Rus, Professor, EECS department: MIT, Co-directs the CSAIL Center for Robotics, Fellow IEEE 2010, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence: Fellow (2009), MacArthur Foundation: MacArthur Fellows Program (2002), Sloan Foundation: Research Fellowship (1998), NSF: Career Award (1996)
  • Jean E. Sammet, IBM computer languages FORMAC and COBOL, 1st woman ACM President 1974, ACM Fellow 1994
  • Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, Bell Labs Fellow Award (1996), WITI Hall of Fame (2007)
  • Barbara Simons, 1st woman to receive the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from the College of Engineering of U.C. Berkeley 2005, ACM Fellow 1993, EFF Pioneer Award 1998, ACM President 1998
  • Yafeng Sun, Chairwoman of Huawei Technologies Board since 1999
  • Eva Tardos, Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Cornell University, ACM Fellow 1998
  • Janie Tsao Co-Founder of Linksys (1988-2003), 1st Anita Borg Institute Woman of Vision – Leadership award winner 2005
  • Dana Ulery, computer scientist; first female engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory,developing real-time tracking systems using a North American Aviation Recomp II, 40-bit

    word size computer

  • Sophie Vandebroek, Xerox Chief Technology Officer since 2006, IEEE Fellow 2005, WITI Hall of Fame 2011, Royal Flemish Academy for Ats & Sciences Member, WITI Hall of Fame 2011
  • Manuela Veloso, Computer Scientist and Roboticist, Herbert A. Simon Professor, School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University. IEEE Fellow (2011), AAAS Fellow (2011), AAAI Fellow (2003), ACM/SIGART Autonomous Agents Research Award (2009), CMU Allen Newell Medal for Excellence in Research (1997), NSF CAREER award (1995).
  • Padmasree Warrior, Cisco Chief Technology Officer, former Motorola Chief Technology Officer (Semiconductor Products), Motorola’s 1st female executive, Distinguished Alumni Award from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi 2004, WITI Hall of Fame 2007
  • Elaine Weyuker, AT&T Fellow at Bell Labs for research in software metrics and testing, Member National Academy of Engineering, Fellow IEEE 2003, ACM Fellow 1997, 2008 Anita Borg Institute Technical Leadership Award, ACM 2010 Presidential Award for “her tireless efforts in the development and growth of the ACM Women’s Council”
  • Meg Whitman, Hewlett-Packard CEO 2011-present, CEO eBay 1998-2008, candidate for Governor of California 2009
  • Jennifer Widom, Chair Computer Science Department Stanford University where she has worked on nontraditional data management, ACM Fellow 2005, Fletcher Jones Professor in Computer Science, Member National Academy of Engineering, Member American Academy of Arts & Sciences, ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd Innovations Award in 2007, Guggenheim Fellow 2000
  • Mary Allen Wilkes, known for her work with the LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer), a 12-bit, 2048-word computer, considered the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer, at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory from 1959-1963. She simulated the LINC on the TX-2 computer, wrote many LINC operating systems, and designed the LINC console. During that time, she used a computer in her home, usually considered to be the first home computer user. As part of the Macromodular Systems Project at Washington University in St. Louis, she designed the multiply macromodule. She left computing to become an attorney.
  • Sophie Wilson, designed the Acorn Microcomputer. Fellow of the Computer History Museum (2012)
  • Jeannette Wing, President’s Professor of Computer Science (former CS Department Head), Carnegie Mellon University, Assistant Director, Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, National Science Foundation, IEEE Fellow 2003, ACM Fellow 1998
  • Beatrice Helen Worsley, Canada’s Female Computer Pioneer, a witness to several great moments in computing history, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in Computer Science in 1951
  • Jane Xu, Distinguished Engineer of IBM Watson Research, CTO of IBM China Systems and Technology Labs, WITI Hall of Fame 2008
  • Kathy Yelick, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences: University of California at Berkeley, and Associate Laboratory Director for Computing Sciences and the Director of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Member National Academies committee on Sustaining Growth in Computing Performance
  • Lixia Zhang, Professor of Computer Science at UCLA and Leader of the UCLA Computer Science Department’s Internet Research Lab (IRL), 2009 IEEE Internet Award, Fellow ACM 2006, Fellow IEEE 2006

References