Prolific Women in Tech
In celebration of Women’s History Month, Trinity would like to honor and thank the women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) whose contributions advance science and technology, shaping a more connected and innovative place. Technology as we know it today would not exist without the groundbreaking research, discoveries, and innovations of women.
This article will discuss five influential women in the history of science and technology: Ada Lovelace, Annie Easley, Radia Perlman, Elizabeth Feinler and Ellen Ochoa. We have made advancements that would not have been possible without these women.
Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer
It is a common belief that computer programming is a novelty in the 20th century. However, the history of computer programming spans back to the 1800s with Ada Lovelace, the world’s first computer programmer.
Lovelace, born in 1815, studied mathematics and science - an uncommon practice for girls in her generation. By 17, she was taken under the wing of Charles Babbage (known as the Father of the Computer) and observed his invention, the Difference Engine. This early computer was designed to perform mathematical calculations. Babbage had drafted plans for an Analytical Engine, which was designed to handle more complex mathematical calculations.
Ada Lovelace translated an article about the Analytical Engine from Italian to English, and added her own notes to it. Her writing was published in an English Science Journal, outlining her theories for the engine to repeat a set of instructions (which we know today as “looping”).
Lovelace's contributions were not truly appreciated or discovered until the 1950s, when B.V. Bowden republished them in Faster Than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines in 1953.
To honor Lovelace, the United States Department of Defense named a new computer language ‘Ada’ in 1980.
Annie Easley
We’ve all heard the phrase, ‘It’s not rocket science,’ which effectively charts rocket science as one of the most difficult things a human being can achieve. In the early 1960s, Annie Easley began her career as the fourth Black employee at NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland (now called the Glenn Research Center). Easley was an incredible computer programmer and mathematician; on to become one of the most prolific rocket scientists in NASA’s history. How? She was pulled into a project to repair the Centaur, a rocket that, literally, launched NASA’s readiness for space exploration.
The Centaur was first launched on May 8th 1962, a historical moment for the United States. According to NASA, this rocket would go on to boost satellites into orbit and push probes into space. Unfortunately, the Centaur's maiden expedition lasted all of 54 seconds before exploding mid-air. The DoD announced, to the dismay of the country, that this expedition would be delayed several years.
Thanks to the work of Annie Easley and a team of rocket scientists, the Centaur would successfully blast into space on November 27th 1963, just 18 months after its failed mission. This impressively short turn-around can be attributed to Easley’s mathematical calculations.
Annie Easley continued on in her career at NASA, not only inspiring others, but directly helping people who, like her, faced racial and gender-based discrimination. Easley volunteered her time at college career fairs to outreach for minorities interested in STEM, and brought that passion into her career with NASA. She became a counselor for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and paved the way for a less-descriminatory future.
Though she passed away in 2007, Easley’s legacy lives on. In 2021, the International Astronomical Union named a five-and-a-half-mile crater in the moon’s southern hemisphere ‘Easley’ to honor her significant contributions to space exploration.
Radia Perlman, the Mother of the Internet
You’re reading this blog on the Internet, you probably work on the Internet, and you spend your spare time using the Internet. It’s been so ingrained in our daily lives that we often forget to step back and look at those who made it possible. The large-scale worldwide web we know and love can be attributed to Radia Perlman, a.k.a the Mother of the Internet.
Perlman is best known for her invention of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), which completely transformed the scale of Ethernet usage. What once could only handle a couple hundred nodes in one building blossomed into an Ethernet that can create large networks with hundreds of thousands of computers.
In the 1980s, Perlman worked for “Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC) to design the routing protocol for DEC’s network, DECnet,” according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Her design became the international Standard Intermediate System - to Intermediate System, or (IS-IS). IS-IS is still broadly used for the Internet today.
Radia Perlman spent the past 40+ years continuing to design routing networks, teach college classes and author books. She holds over 200 U.S. patents - an impressive feat - and has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and the Internet Hall of Fame.
Elizabeth Feinler: The Original Search Engine
In the olden times, before Google, people obtained information from the internet from Network Information Centers (NIC), which were the first places for directories and resources to be published on the internet. In the 1970s, Elizabeth Feinler and her group developed the first internet “yellow-” and “white-page” servers, according to the Internet Hall of Fame. Feinler and her team managed the Host Naming Registry for the internet from 1972-1989. The group developed Top-Level Domain (TLD) naming schemes that we’re all familiar with today: .com, .edu, .gov, .mil.
By 1989, Feinler had begun contract work for NASA, where she served as a Network Requirements Manager. Her work with NASA brought networking to large telescoping sites.
Elizabeth Feinler has lived an impressive life and significantly changed the modern Internet. She’s been inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame, Stanford Research Institute Alumni Hall of Fame; and she has led multiple groups over the years, like the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the Using Working Group (later became the IETF Users Working Group).
Ellen Ochoa
Last, but certainly not least, we have Ellen Ochoa - the first Hispanic woman (and second woman ever) to be named the Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and the first Hispanic woman to fly into space. She didn’t begin her story with such an impressive position, though. This role was earned from years of trailblazing, research, engineering, and being an astronaut.
In the mid 1980s, Ellen began her career with NASA at the Ames Research Center, where she studied optical systems for performing information processing. During this time, Ochoa became co-holder of three U.S. patents: an optical inspection system, an optical object recognition method, and a method for noise removal in images, according to NASA.
By 1990, Ochoa was managing the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at Ames and was selected to become an astronaut herself. Ellen Ochoa made history in 1993 by being the first Hispanic woman to fly into space. She went on to fly in space three more times, with each time using her incredible remote manipulator skills for a critical part of the mission.
Ochoa’s 30-year career at NASA changed the course of history for the United States’ space exploration and research.
Trinity IT thanks the five women we’ve covered today, and the countless others who have made contributions to science and technology. This Women’s History Month, we encourage you to take the time to recognize and thank women in your industry who have made a difference.
Elizabeth Casalnova,
(267) 396-7901
elizabeth.casalnova@trinityit.biz