COMPUTER CLUE – WOMEN ON THE EDGE
Expanding Your Horizons Conference, Fall 2004

Read the following “biographies” of Women on the Edge.  Use the clues given in the biographies to search the Internet and find the answer. 

1.      This “woman on the edge” was the driver for modern US computer technology. Modern computer history began when she was assigned to work fro Howard Aiken at Harvard in the late 1940s.  She spent her career working for the US Navy.  At her retirement, she was the oldest person on active duty with the US Navy.  She coined the term “computer bug” during her work with the first electronic computers when she found the moth that had shorted out two tubes.  She invented the modern subroutine.  She built the first A-O compiler which went live on November 4, 1952 on the UNIVAC I to predict the Eisenhower win after 7% vote returns.  The Navy and computer industry felt her work and contributions so valuable that they kept returning her to active duty after retirement.  She invented the language APT.  She verified the language COBOL.  Who was she? Grace Hopper

2.      This “woman on the edge” was the first American woman to receive a degree in dentistry.  She practiced in Lawrence, KS, from 1867 to 1907.  She had wanted to be a doctor and had applied to the Eclectic Medical School in Cincinnati, which was accepting women.  By the time she arrived at the school, however, they had changed the rule and were denying admission to women.  At that point, she was steered into dentistry.  Who was she?  Lucy Hobbs Taylor

3.      This “woman on the edge” founded the science of home economics, which can be called a science because she made a study of determining how to systematize and simplify housework and how to provide nutritious meals at a reasonable cost.    One of the founders of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, which later became the American Association of University Women, which was founded in part to fight the myth that he was not healthy for young women to engage in serious study.    The first woman to enter a technical institute (MIT) as an accepted student in 1870, she studied chemistry and received her degree in 1873.  She was the first woman elected to the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers (1920s).  Who was she?  Ellen Swallow Richards

4.      This “woman on the edge” was a child prodigy.  By the age of nine she wrote, read, and spoke Italian, French, Latin, Greek, German, Spanish and Hebrew, and was known as the “oracle of the seven tongues.”  One of her solutions for an algebraic equation is still found in today’s textbooks.  Pope Benedict XIV appointed her to the chair of higher mathematics at the University of Bologna.  Who was she?  Maria Gaetana Agnesi

5.      This “woman on the edge” is considered the first computer programmer.  She was the daughter of Lord Byron, the English poet.  One of her patrons was Sir Charles Babbage, the inventor of the first mechanical computer.  She wrote the “code” to run the machine.  To honor her memory, the US Navy named on its computer languages after her (her middle name).  Who was she?  Lady Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace 

6.      This “woman on the edge” became the first woman to become a full professor at Harvard.  The first person (not just woman) to receive a Ph.D. in astronomy awarded by either Radcliffe or Harvard, she was also the first person to receive a Ph.D. for work done at the Harvard Observatory.  Her dissertation, said to be the best one in 20^th century astronomy, argued the great variation in stellar absorption lines was due to differing amounts of ionization, not differing abundances of elements.  In 1977 she received the prestigious Henry Norris Russell Prize from the American Astronomical Society.  Who was she?  Cecelia Payne-Gaposchkin 

7.      This “woman on the edge” was the first female professor of astronomy in the United States.  In 1848 she was appointed the first woman to the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 1853 she was awarded the first advanced degree given to a woman from Indiana Hanover College.  She was awarded the Medal of Merit from Switzerland and the Republic of San Moreno.  In 1865 she was the first woman appointed to the faculty of Vassar.  Who was she?  Maria Mitchell 

8.      This “woman on the edge” was one of the first two black women to obtain a Ph.D. in Mathematics.  She received her degree from Yale in 1949, and went on to make several contributions to the US Space program, including Vanguard, Mercury and Apollo.  She also worked at Space Technology Laboratories as a mathematical analyst studying rocket trajectories. Who was she?  Evelyn Boyd Granville 

9.      This “woman on the edge” became the first African-American woman to be licensed as a pilot in 1922.  She could not study to fly in the US so she learned French in order to take flying lessons in Europe.  She died during a flying exhibition in 1926.  Who was she?  Bessie Coleman 

10. This “woman on the edge” was the first head of the mathematics department at Bryn Mawr College, the first women’s college offering graduate degrees.  In addition, she was the initiator of the College Entrance Exam Board, and one of the organizers of the American Mathematical Society.  A pioneer in women’s higher education, she faced severe restrictions on her participation in classes and activities – not officially permitted to take the traditional oral exam at the end of the program, she took it unofficially, and placed eighth overall, including the male students.  In 1909, she was given the first endowed chair at Bryn Mawr, in recognition of her achievements.  Who was she?  Charlotte Angas Scott

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3/20/07