Technology has transformed life as know it – from connecting people across the globe to administering lifesaving treatments. But what names come to mind when you think of the visionaries behind today’s technological marvels?
Odds are, the first pioneers that spring up are men. After all, women have faced uphill battles for recognition even in recent decades. But despite the barriers, exceptional women have profoundly impacted technology since computing’s earliest days.
This guide explores six pioneering women who defied skeptics and overcame “computers can’t be ladies” mentalities by inventing groundbreaking technologies still indispensable today.
You’ll learn about:
Grace Hopper
- Navy Rear Admiral
- Developed first compiler and early programming languages like COBOL
- Known as the “Queen of Software”
Barbara Liskov
- MIT professor
- Created foundational Object-Oriented Programming concepts like Liskov Substitution Principle
- Won Turing Award for contributions to practical and scalable software design paradigms
Adele Goldberg
- Xerox PARC researcher
- Co-designed Smalltalk programming language and UI/UX building blocks
- Envisioned notebook computers and influenced graphical user interfaces like Windows and Mac OS
Ruchi Sanghvi
- First female engineer at Facebook
- Developed Facebook‘s original News Feed and privacy controls
- Architected Facebook’s inaugural advertising system
Frances E. Allen
- IBM research staff member
- Pioneer in optimizing code for parallel computation
- Her work enabled breakthroughs in high performance computing
The Bottom Line
While just scratches the surface of technical women trailblazers, these six computer scientists and engineers demonstrably changed technology as we know it – while overcoming social barriers excluding women and skepticism questioning their radical visions.
Let’s explore their awe-inspiring journeys…
Grace Hopper: The Queen of Software
Known as the “Grand Lady of Software,” Rear Admiral Grace Hopper pioneered principles of machine-independent programming languages that remain vital to computing infrastructures worldwide.
Overview of Key Accomplishments:
- One of the first computer programmers ever in history
- Invented the compiler and worked on world‘s first commercial computers
- Played pivotal role in developing COBOL, a dominant programming language by 1970s
| Year | Accomplishment |
|---|---|
| 1906 | Born in New York City |
| 1934 | Earned Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale University |
| 1943 | Joined U.S. Naval Reserve and was assigned to program Harvard Mark I computer |
| 1944 | Co-authored A Manual of Operation for the Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator documenting Mark I programming |
| 1949 | Worked on early commercial UNIVAC I computer at Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation |
| 1952 | Invented the compiler |
| 1954 | Appointed head of automatic programming department to develop COBOL compiler |
| 1967 | First woman to become Distinguished Fellow of British Computing Society |
| 1991 | Received National Medal of Technology and Innovation |
| 2016 | Posthumously awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom |
From Moths in Computers to High-Level Languages: Grace Hopper’s Pioneering Journey
Grace Hopper’s innovations arose from equal parts pure vision and practicality. By recognizing possibilities beyond computers simply “crunching numbers” to directly empowering people through accessible languages, Hopper molded foundational building blocks enabling today’s computing realities.
Hopper’s early life showed promise for her later brilliance. From a curious childhood spent disassembling clocks to her undergraduate valedictorian address foreshadowing advances like smartphones, Hopper consistently showcased technological savvy belying gender stereotypes.
After earning her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale in 1934, Hopper taught the subject at her alma mater Vassar College before duty called. Though the U.S. Navy initially rejected the 38-year old professor’s repeated enlistment attempts during World War II, she obtained a leave of absence from Vassar to join the Naval Reserve in 1943.
The Navy assigned Lieutenant Hopper to the Bureau of Ordnance Computation Project at Harvard University. There she became a research fellow programming the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator – better known as the Harvard Mark I computer.
Weighing over 10,000 pounds, the hulking Mark I contained 750,000 components performing calculations using mechanical relays and switches. Hopper and her team used this room-sized machine to compute weapons trajectories. She also authored the comprehensive ___ page operator manual for the Mark I.
Already intimate with the complexities of early computers, Hopper now envisioned how they could work for people rather than just alongside them.
After World War II, the Navy assigned Hopper to the Navy Computation Lab at Harvard directing programming research for the Mark II and Mark III computers. Meanwhile, she declined an offer to return to Vassar and resigned her leave of absence to continue advancing computing capabilities in the Navy.
In 1949, Hopper joined the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation as a senior mathematician developing the UNIVAC I – the first commercial computer produced in the United States. At Eckert-Mauchly, she gained insights into business computing requirements that soon sparked her pioneering compiler concept.
From De-“Bugging” Systems to High-Level COBOL
Recognizing the difficulty of writing code directly in the esoteric binary machine languages early computers understood, Hopper had an epiphany – computers should talk in languages people easily understand!
Her vision led Hopper to create the “compiler” translating more human-accessible code into machine language. As she later said:
“Nobody believed that. I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.”
But Hopper persevered, authoring a paper outlining her compiler ideas in 1952. Refusing to back down when told computers “can’t do this, they can only do arithmetic,” she fought skepticism until organizations finally adopted her efficient approach.
Her compiler concepts proved foundational for the Common Business-Oriented Language (COBOL) she spearheaded designing starting in 1959. Built from English-based syntax familiar to business roles, COBOL enabled both business experts and developers to write programs handling commercial data processing needs.
In the early 1960s, Hopper led development of some of the first COBOL compilers while directing automated programming at Remington Rand. Though created before standardized programming languages, COBOL quickly dominated business computing applications. By the 1970s, it represented the most extensively used programming language globally.
So while not the easiest language to look at today, COBOL remains actively used across banking, insurance, transportation and other industries processing high volumes of transactional data. This longevity results directly from Hopper’s insights on opening programming to human language expressiveness.
Grace Hopper’s prescient quote on future computing impacts reveals how ahead of her time she was:
“We’re only at the beginning, but we’re freeing computers from being tabulating machines and calculator boxes. We’re teaching them to speak a language we can understand, communicate with each other, and perform symbolic as well as numerical computation…What we’re building here is actually a neural network with neurons, but electronic neurons.”
Her human-centered approach became central computing’s evolution beyond raw number crunching into the world-connecting, reality-bending force it represents today.
By 1968, Hopper had risen to the Naval rank of captain, becoming one of the first women in any military branch to reach such a high officer status based on merit rather than honoring years of service. Over her 43 year Naval career, she retired and was recalled a total of four times before mandatory retirement at age 80 with the rank of Rear Admiral.
In 1983, the Navy commissioned a guided missile destroyer in her name, the USS Hopper, highlighting her impact on technology employed in naval defenses.
Among her numerous awards and honors, Hopper received 40 honorary degrees from universities worldwide. In 1991 she obtained the National Medal of Technology. After her death in 1992, Grace Hopper was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in 2016.
Grace Hopper’s maverick attitude broke barriers by confidently bringing cutting-edge engineering capabilities to wider audiences. By blowing past any “technologically illiterate female” stereotypes through repeated firsts like publishing one of the earliest software engineering textbooks, Hopper inspired legions of women proving they also have rightful place coding the digital future.
She left an immense legacy through abstracting programming complexity into the higher level languages ultimately enabling anyone to “speak” to computers by manipulating worlds inside them. The Queen of Software’s compiler invention will continue lowering barriers between human creativity and our technologies’ ability to make those visions reality.
Barbara Liskov: Object-Oriented Programming Pioneer
Barbara Liskov’s fundamental innovations establishing key principles for structuring object-oriented software permanently transformed programming. By allowing modular, reusable code design, she enabled the scalable engineering processes that now produce everything from mobile apps to massive cloud systems.
Overview of Key Accomplishments:
- Created foundational Object-Oriented Programming concepts like the Liskov Substitution Principle and modular program design using Abstract Data Types
- Invented CLU programming language advancing foundations for reusing and extending code
- Turing Award winner for contributions enabling robust engineering of complex software systems at scale
| Year | Accomplishment |
|---|---|
| 1968 | Earned Ph.D. from Stanford, one of first U.S. women granted doctorate in computer science |
| 1972 | Published early conceptual work on abstract data types for program modularity |
| 1974 | Designed CLU programming language advancing foundations for code reuse in software engineering |
| 1987 | Elected as member of National Academy of Engineering |
| 2008 | Received Turing Award for groundbreaking work allowing construction of reliable, scalable software systems |
| 2022 | Serving as Institute Professor at MIT while directing the Programming Methodology research group |
Barbara Liskov’s innovations arose from a vision to simplify software creation by allowing reusable, substitutable building blocks. By creating hierarchies of interchangeable data types, she enabled programmers to architect systems faster while ensuring consistency of behaviors.
After earning her degree, Liskov began formulating her paradigm-shifting ideas for Object-Oriented Programming in 1972. This work established interchangeable abstract data types with implementation details hidden, allowing component substitutions avoiding internal access complexities.
She later generalized key Object-Oriented concepts in her 1988 paper outlining the Liskov Substitution Principle. This dictate for swappable type hierarchies remains vital across modern programming languages.
By enabling modular designs safely leveraging code reuse, Liskov powered software engineering scalability now relied upon across virtually all industries. The profound legacy of her rigorous pursuit for elegance continues propelling our technological progress ever upwards.
Pioneering Modular Programming Methods
Liskov’s innovations built on mathematical foundations to establish standard techniques encouraging better program designs. Her pioneering work focused on structuring software pieces into hierarchical orders allowing greater complexity yet simplified reuse.
Early on at MIT, Liskov recognized difficulty rigorously analyzing and testing unfathomably convoluted systems built from masses of interdependent code. By considering program architectures and data type interfaces, she sought to enable clean system designs despite increasing scale.
In 1972, Liskov published her ideas establishing communication protocols dictating how code components access each other’s data and behaviors. By hiding internal complexities behind these well-defined interfaces, self-contained code can plug together interchangeably to build reliable systems.
These early theoretical concepts described communicating sequential processes and abstract data types for program modularity. They pioneered defining hierarchical relationships allowing inheritance of specifications across data types.
While initially abstract, Liskov’s developing theories suggested revolutionary approaches for engineering scalable software programs out of specialized parts with substitutable interfaces. This meant simpler testing with parts substitutable like LEGO blocks.
Bringing Order Through Classification
Building on these data type hierarchy notions, Liskov proceeded to design programming languages themselves using her classification principles. Her subsequent CLU language aimed to concretely prove modularity advantages in practical use.
Completed in 1974 after 2 years of work, CLU implemented replaceable module concepts later dubbed “Liskov Substitution” by others extending her approach. By imposing specifications ordering type capabilities, CLU enabled exchanging code pieces fulfilling expected criteria.
For instance, an abstract Vehicle type can mandate attributes like producing energy. More specific subtypes like GasEngine then inherit and expand those rules for override-able parts replacements. This allows finely isolating behaviors into particular components behind consist interfaces.
During the 1970s, Liskov leveraged CLU experiments to demonstrate reusable data classifications facilitating program maintenance, evolution and analysis. Her hierarchical type checking allowed separating tasks with limited inter-dependencies – perfect for parallel computing.
These object-oriented approaches structured high-level facial constructs that modern languages like Java deeply rely upon today. By championing modular programming, Barbara Liskov activated a paradigm shift toward component architectures now standard across software.
Enabling Robust Scalability
Liskov’s subsequent 1988 Liskov Substitution Principle paper generalized key concepts for sustaining software integrity as complexity compounds exponentially. By precisely specifying type expectations, programmers can reliably reuse and extend implementations without concern for surprises from underlying code assumed like a black box.
This substitutability theory encourages loose module coupling while enforcing strict type compliance. So changes stay localized behind predefined interfaces maintaining overall system stability.
Such fundamental concepts pioneered by Liskov’s teachings continue powering the internet and technological mainstays we trust daily. Her work formally guided modular programming MT best practices for global software industries building safety-critical systems like medical tools or autonomous vehicles.
Lasting Legacies
Barbara Liskov’s pioneering accomplishments cement her as a titan advancing modern computing. Her rigorous pursuit of elegant principles taming software complexity unleashed engineering scalability that now exceeds billions of lines of code.
Nearly 50 years since CLU’s debut, Liskov’s vision for modular reuse continues accelerating software innovation everywhere by letting groups integrate specialized contributions. This cooperative progress then compounds as next generations stand on shoulders of past achievements.
By receiving the Turing Award in 2008 for her lifetime contributions benefitting countless technologies since the 70s, Barbara Liskov etched her name among the most influential minds propelling our computing capabilities ever upwards.
Thank the extraordinarily systematic software engineering foundations Liskov introduced next time you use an app, website or other technology reliably built atop cascades of reusable code components!
