Fran Allen - Women In Technology

Basic Summary Points:

IBM fellow

- 4 or 5 selected a year

- first female

- highest honor as an IBM employee

Pioneered the field of optimizing compliers

- minimize power consumed by program

- solved issue by minimizing power it takes to execute program or minimizing memory occupied

Education

-Albany State Teachers College (bachelor’s math degree)

-University of Michigan (masters math degree)

Taught

-in Peru, New York

Turning Award 2006

-equivalent to a Nobel Prize in Computer Science

Parallel TRANslation

-group that studies issues with parallelization

FRAN ALLEN

Fran Allen or commonly known as Frances Elizabeth Allen was one of the greatest women in the field of computer science and technology. She has done so much for this field of study contributing to many new discoveries and research projects.

First of all, Fran Allen has accomplished so much within such a small time frame. Within her lifetime (so far) she was able to be the first female to receive the IBM fellow. This was created by the IBM president giving his employees the highest honor. Only four to five employees are selected a year. Fran Allen was a computer scientist that jump started the field of optimizing compliers. Basically their goals were to minimize the power consumed by a program by working with the time it takes to execute a program or minimizing the memory occupied.

Her education started at the Albany State Teachers college where she earned her bachelor’s degree in math and started to teach in Peru, NY after her Master degree from University of Michigan. After many years of school, she joined IBM to pay off school loans, but ended up staying for 45 years.

One of the biggest accomplishments include the Turning Award in 2006. This award is given to an individual for their works toward the computing community. It is the equivalent of nobel prize for computing. Other accomplishments included being the president of IBM Academy of Technology and forming the Parallel TRANslation (group that studies issues involving parallelization issues)

Bibliography:

"Frances E. Allen." Wikipedia. 2007. 10 Apr 2008 .

Maney, Kevin. "IBM-er wins tech's version of Nobel...." USA Today. 02 feb 2007. USA Today. 10 Apr 2008 .

Wallingford, Eugene. "Knowing and Doing: March 2007 Archives." Knowing and Doing. 30 mar 2007. Knowing and Doing. 10 Apr 2008 .