Big Blue woman gets Turing Award

FRANCES E. Allen (75) has been awarded this year's Turing Award for her lifetime's work in the computing industry.

Allen, who is the first woman to win the award in its 40 year history, worked at IBM developing compilers.

She joined IBM in 1957 in the days when Big Blue recruited women by circulating a brochure on campuses that was titled "My Fair Ladies."

Her early work involved replicating Fortran on other types of computer. Later she would pen intelligence analysis software for the National Security Agency and design software for IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer.

Since she retired in 2002 she has been involved in many different education programmes that try to attract women into the industry.

More here. µ