Women Pioneers in Software Engineering
In the ever-evolving field of software engineering, it’s easy to loose sight of the origins. Many of the fundamental principles guiding our modern technological landscape were crafted by the hands and minds of women. These women defied societal norms and expectations, and helped shape the trajectory of software engineering. Their influence continues to be felt in the steadfast fundamentals that are still used today. Sadly, their stories are not widely known. So let’s dive in on just a few of their remarkable legacies.
The first recognized computer programmer was Ada Lovelace, daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, born in 1815. She became a mathematician and worked closely with Charles Babbage. She created a program for Babbage’s prototype of a digital computer. She was later asked to translate an article on Babbage’s analytical engine written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea. Not only did she translate the article from French into English, but also contributed her own thoughts and ideas. In her notes, she theorized a method to repeat a series of instructions, which today, is know as looping, and continues to be a foundation used regularly by developers.
Hedy Lamar was an Austrian-American actress and inventor. While revered for her beauty in Hollywood in the 1930s, she was also a brilliant inventor. She created an upgraded stoplight and a dissolvable tablet to make soda. Her most significant invention, though, was engineering in the years leading up to World War II. She met George Antheil in 1940 and together, they created a communication system with the intention of guiding torpedoes to their targets in war. The system used “frequency hopping” amongst radio waves with both transmitter and receiver hopping to new frequencies together. Their work pioneered the technology that would come to form the basis for Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems. She has been recognized with numerous awards for her contributions and continues to be known as “the mother of Wi-Fi”.
During World War II, hundreds of women became employed as “computers”. Their jobs included computing and solving long lists of equations, which were often used on the battlefields, allowing soldiers in the field to aim artillery and other weapons taking into account variable conditions. During this time, the ENIAC was completed, an electronic device to compute and calculate automatically, and is widely regarded as the first electronic digital computer. Six women were chosen from the human computers to be trained as programmers to program this new machine — Kay McNulty, Frances Bilas, Jean Jennings, Elizabeth Snyder, Ruth Lichterman, and Maryln Wescoff. These six women created the very first computer program. Jean Bartik, one of the lead programmers, also made contributions to early BINAC and UNIVAC 1 computers. She received a Pioneer Award from the IEEE in 2009.
Margaret Hamilton coined the term Software Engineering in the early 1960s while leading the team developing the guidance and navigation systems for the Apollo missions, while also serving as Director of the Software Engineering Division at MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory. She created error detection and recovery programs, including loop concepts that allowed the on-board flight software to communicate asynchronously with the astronaut within. This software showed priority displays to the astronauts to warn them in cases of emergency. She has received numerous honors, including NASA’s Exceptional Space Act Award in 2003 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016.
These are just a few of the exceptional women and their contributions to software engineering. Their groundbreaking achievements remind us of the importance of acknowledging and honoring the diverse perspectives and talents that continue to shape our technological world.
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ada-Lovelace
https://www.biography.com/scholars-educators/ada-lovelace
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/hedy-lamarr
https://ethw.org/Women_Computers_in_World_War_II
https://computerhistory.org/profile/jean-jennings-bartik/
https://science.nasa.gov/people/margaret-hamilton/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Hamilton-American-computer-scientist
https://computerhistory.org/profile/margaret-hamilton/