Fran Allen: The IBM Scientist Who Pioneered Optimized Compilers and Parallel Computing
Fran Allen: The IBM Scientist Who Pioneered Optimized Compilers and Parallel Computing Fran Allen is a pioneering computer scientist and the first female IBM Fellow. Although her remarkable career at IBM spanned five decades and concentrated on optimized compilers and parallel computing, she was also a major player in early artificial intelligence (AI) development. Allen has a raft of awards, including the Augusta Ada Lovelace Award and the 2000 ACM Turing Award, which is the highest honour awarded in computer science. She is still active in the field of computer science today. Allen was born on in 1932, in Peru, New York. Her father, Melvin W. Everett, was an IBM scientist, which played a role in her decision to pursue a career in computing. She received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Pennsylvania State University and went on to earn her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Michigan. From 1957 to 2002, Allen worked at IBM and was involved in some of the most...