The "Women Pioneers and Trailblazers in Computing" panel celebrates some of computer science's greatest achievers. This panel is an opportunity for attendees of the Grace Hopper Celebration to recognize, learn, and share experiences of trailblazers in the computer science (CS) community. The women featured on the panel are innovators who have excelled in technical and/or entrepreneurial areas of computer science. They are also diverse in technical area, age, and nationality, thus creating an international and inter-generational dialog about the history and future of women in computing. They will discuss their achievements, the obstacles they faced and overcame, as well as give advice and perspectives on the changing environment for women in the computing profession.
The ensuing discourse should prove both educational and entertaining due to the variety of backgrounds and expertise represented by the panelists, which includes: programming the world's first computing machines, developing biomedical applications for computers, inventing programming languages, hypermedia technology, and performance evaluation languages, starting their own high-tech companies, and becoming some of the first women leaders in professional computing societies.
This panel serves two purposes. First, it will educate and showcase some of the accomplishments of women in early computing. History plays an important role in any scientific field where it provides the context and knowledge to allow us to learn from past mistakes, understand the current achievements (both technical and social), and provide a vision for the future. This is especially true for the field of computer science that is constantly and rapidly evolving. Second, this workshop will provide role models for current and up and coming women computer scientists. Role models help to reinforce girls' and women's sense of selves as scientists, essential to enable women to function confidently within current scientific communities. They can also decrease negative stereotypes about people who are good at science, decrease feelings of isolation, and strengthen commitments to careers in computer science.
An introductory presentation will describe each pioneer's accomplishments and the state of the computing field and society at the time. As part of the introduction, a short and inspiring documentary, "The Computers", will be shown on the world's first programmers of the first all-electronic computing machine (the ENIAC), produced by Kathy Kleiman and David Roland. A panel discussion will follow the introduction and the session will end with questions from the audience. Topics will include: What intellectual and social obstacles did these pioneers overcome? What interested them in computer science and inspired them to continue? What background was needed to pursue their work? What technical problems did they work on, and how were they solved? Did they have mentors? How did they balance work and their private lives? What changes have they seen in the field over time? The pioneers will also be asked to offer advice to the audience on topics such as how to choose a fruitful research project and how to find and be a good mentor.
Panel Co-Chair
Janet Abbate is an Assistant Professor in Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech. She is the author of Inventing the Internet (MIT, 1999) and numerous articles on the history of computer networking. Abbate has held postdocs at the Harvard School of Government's Information Infrastructure Project, the IEEE History Center, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and has taught at Rutgers, the University of Maryland, and Johns Hopkins. Her current research, funded by the National Science Foundation, focuses on the history of women in computing, comparing the experiences of female programmers and computer scientists in the US and Britain from World War II to the 1980s. She edited a fall 2003 special issue of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing on women and gender in the history of computing and is a member of the ACM Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W). Dr. Abbate received her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and B.A. from Harvard-Radcliffe.
Panel Co-Chair
Denise Gürer is Senior Computer Scientist at LightCloud Software. She has been researching women's accomplishments in the history of computing for over ten years. Gürer has led research projects in applying artificial intelligence technologies to automated data network management, interface design for wireless platforms, collaborative learning environments, and cognitive models of learning. She has also managed projects in on-line mentoring for girls in technology and the status of women in computing. Previously she was a research scientist at the Technology Development Center at 3Com Corporation and before that, SRI International. Gürer is a member of the Editorial Board of IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, a member of the Advisory Board for the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI), recent Chair of ACM's Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W), and recent member of the ACM Council. Dr. Gürer received her Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from Lehigh University and a M.S. in Physics from Lehigh University.
Panelist
Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli was one of the six original programmers of the ENIAC machine (the world's first all-electronic computer), thus making her one of the world's first programmers. Initially, she was hired by Aberdeen Proving Grounds to be a "Computer" where ballistics trajectory equations were calculated by hand to make firing tables for guns and cannons during World War II. Ms. Antonelli was quickly promoted to working on, and then supervising, these calculations on the Differential Analyzer, an electro-mechanical analog calculating device. With the invention of ENIAC, these computations went from taking 40 hours (by hand), to an hour (by Analyzer), to just mere seconds (by ENIAC) and Ms. Antonelli was recruited into the initial programming team. Without prior training and only schematics to work with, the all-woman team programmed ENIAC. After WWII, she helped some of the world's leading mathematicians use ENIAC, and helped teach the next generation of computer programmers. In 1997 Antonelli was inducted into the Women In Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame. Ms. Antonelli received her Bachelors Degree in Mathematics from Chestnut Hill College in 1942.
Panelist
Thelma Estrin is Professor Emerita at the University of California (UCLA) Department of Computer Science. She was one of the two engineers who came from the von Neumann Group in Princeton in 1954 to lead the development of WEIZAC, the first large scale computing machine in Israel. In the early 1960s she also established one of the first computing facilities for neuroscience research at UCLA, where an analog-to-digital conversion system transformed analog electroencephalographic signals into digital representation for appropriate analysis. She is a former president of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and a former Executive Vice-President of the IEEE. Estrin was also the first woman member to be elected to the Board of Directors of the Aerospace Corporation and the first woman to be elected to the IEEE Board of Directors. Her many awards include the Achievement Award of the Society for Women in Engineering, the Distinguished Service Citation and an honorary doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, and the IEEE Centennial Medal and Haraden Pratt Awards. Dr. Estrin received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin.
Panelist
Adele Goldberg is Founder and Director of Neometron, Inc. and Chief Technology Officer of Agile Mind. Goldberg was Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at ParcPlace Systems, a successful spin-off from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) where she had been a principal scientist and manager of the Learning Research Laboratory. During her career at Xerox PARC, Goldberg directed the team credited with creating the first purely object-oriented programming language, Smalltalk-80. She has received a number of prestigious awards for her work, including an honorary doctorate from the Open University, UK, the ACM Systems Software Award, the Reed College Howard Vollum Award, and PC Magazine's 1990 Lifetime Achievement Award. Goldberg is a former President of ACM, and has served as the National Secretary and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Computing Surveys. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Exploratorium, is a member of the Visiting Committee of the Physical Sciences Division of the University of Chicago; and is a trustee of the International Computer Sciences Institute in Berkeley, California. Dr. Goldberg received her Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Chicago.
Panelist
Wendy Hall is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Southampton, in the UK, and is currently Head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS). She was the founding Head of the Intelligence, Agents, Multimedia (IAM) Research Group that developed the open hypermedia system, Microcosm, which was awarded the ITEA'95 and BCS IT'96 awards. Hall is the co-author of the book Hypermedia and the Web: an Engineering Approach (Wiley 1999) and has published over 300 papers in the areas of hypermedia, multimedia, digital libraries, multi-agent systems, and knowledge technologies. She is the second woman to serve as President of the British Computer Society and a member of several key committees including the Prime Minister's Council for Science and Technology, IW3C2, and UKCRC, and she is a non-executive director of several companies and charitable trusts. She was awarded a CBE in 2000, and is a Fellow of the BCS, the IEE, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the City and Guilds of London Institute. Dr. Hall received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Southampton.
Panelist
Jane Hillston is Reader in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Her principal research interests are in the use of process algebras to model computer systems and the investigation of issues of compositionality with respect to Markov processes. Hillston received the 1995 British Computer Society / Conference of Professors and Heads of Computing (BCS/CPHC) Distinguished Dissertation Award for her thesis, A Compositional Approach to Performance Modelling. For her work on PEPA, she was also awarded the prestigious Roger Needham Award, sponsored by Microsoft Research Cambridge, for a distinguished research contribution in computer science by a UK based researcher within ten years of their PhD. PEPA is a stochastic process algebra used for modelling systems composed of concurrently active components that co-operate and share work. Dr. Hillston received her Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh and her M.S. degree in Mathematics from Lehigh University.
Panelist
Hilary Kahn is Professor of Computer Science at the University of Manchester. She founded the CAD lab at Manchester and developed the logic simulator used in the design of the Manchester MU5 mainframe computer system, the fifth of the computers designed and built at Manchester. She became a very active member of the international community developing standards for the support of electronic design where her work in information modelling has become the basis for Electronic Design Interchange Format (EDIF) standards. Her technique, the EXPRESS information model, which defines the formal semantics of the format, was adopted by EDIF. More recently, her research interests are on exploiting information models as the basis of software generation and on techniques to integrate complex systems. Ms. Kahn studied Latin at the University of London before obtaining a Diploma in Business Data Processing from the University of Newcastle.
Panelist
Dame Stephanie Shirley is Founder and Life President of Xansa plc, an international business process and IT services company. Arriving in the UK from Germany as an unaccompanied child refugee in 1939, Shirley started the successful Xansa plc in 1962, pioneered new work practices, and helped to redefine the role of professional women along the way. She was the first woman President of the British Computer Society, served on the Board of Directors of Tandem Computers, is in the US National Women's Hall of Fame, and was awarded dameship by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for services to IT. Shirley set up the Shirley Foundation that has given $100m to a number of start-up projects that are pioneering by nature and strategic in impact, including the first web-based conference in the disability field, the portal autismconnect, and in 2001 the multidisciplinary Oxford Internet Institute. Dame Shirley has a London honours degree in Mathematics taken at evening classes.
Panelist
Elsie Shutt is Founder and President of Computations, Incorporated (CompInc). Shutt was a pioneer in defining freelance software development through the company she established, CompInc. Professional programmers were employed; primarily women who for family or other reasons desired a flexible work schedule offering a mix of at-home and on-site work. Shutt's first experience in computer programming occurred in 1952 when she worked one summer at the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, programming the ORDVAC computer. She continued in graduate school at Radcliffe for several years, including a Fullbright year in France, before leaving to take a job as a programmer at Raytheon Company. She left her full-time job when her first child was born, and founded CompInc soon thereafter. A primary goal has been to enable women to stay abreast of a rapidly changing field during their years at home caring for young families. CompInc is still in operation in 2004, after 46 years. Ms. Shutt has a Masters Degree in Mathematics.