Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Fran Allen Wins Turing Award

Posted by kdawson on from the one-small-step-for-a-woman dept.

shoemortgage writes "The Association for Computing Machinery has named Frances E. Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance computing. Allen,74, is the first woman to receive the Turing Award in the 41 years of its history. She retired from IBM in 2002."

1 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Never heard of her before by DevStar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually my first response was "Finally!". I think the surprise exhibited by most people on Slashdot has more to do with the level of actual CS sophistication on Slashdot than it does anything else (which is consistently displayed on almost anything related to CS). Her work on program analysis and program transformation has completely changed the field in the same way that Codd changed databases or Thompson changed systems.
    Also, RIP Ken Kennedy. Another true star in the field.