Frances E Allen (1932-2020)

Allen was born in the town of Peru, upstate New York, in August 1932.
She earned a Master's degree in mathematics from the University of Michigan in 1957.
In the early 1980s, Allen was a maths teacher at New York University and Stanford University, California.
Looking to pay off college debts, she took a job with IBM where she worked on compilers, program optimization, and parallel computing.
Her work with supercomputers led to Allen being part of what is recognised as one of the most profound periods in computing development and, in 1989, she was the first woman to be awarded an IBM Fellowship.
Allen retired in 2002, being subsequently honoured with an A.M. Turing Award in 2006 and an IBM PhD in 2007, the IBM Fellowship Award being created in her honour.

Author: Sara Singh (2021) LJMU Student

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