Turing award (for computing) goes to a lady

July 14, 2007 at 8:59 am Leave a comment

One of the most prestigious prizes in computing, the $100,000 Turing Award, for the first time in 40 years, was awarded to a woman on Wednesday. Frances E. Allen, 74, was honored for her work at IBM Corp. on techniques for optimizing the performance of compilers, the programs that translate one computer language into another.

Allen joined IBM in 1957 after completing a master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan. At the time, IBM recruited women by circulating a brochure on campuses that was titled “My Fair Ladies.”

The Turing Award was first given in 1966 by the Association for Computing Machinery. Previous winners have included luminaries in encryption, artificial intelligence, hypertext, networking and other vital elements of modern computing.

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